#those are tidbits he keeps to himself and the audience only finds out later through other means

[mxtxfanatic]

@beyondplusultra Hey quick question: what translation did you use that used the word "welts"? Because the exr translations says this:

He felt his back, covered in scars both old and new...

and wangxianbunnydoodles has this to say:

He touched his back that was covered in crisscrossing old and new injuries...

While you can infer that the "old and new" are the injuries from Madam Yu's earlier whipping of him in the same chapter (old) and the hits from the lotus pond owner that just occurred (new)—and I wouldn't begrudge you that, in hindsight—there is absolutely nothing in the text to infer that Wei Wuxian was never "hit hard enough to leave scars," particularly since he, himself, says that he was whipped as a child and then sent to the ancestral hall:

The most that he’d been through were two or three strikes and being grounded.

—Chapt. 58: Poisons, exr

The only way he would not have scars is if he was only whipped after developing a golden core, depending on the strength of said core, as shown by the fact that he seems to heal remarkably quickly from his whipping right before the fall of Lotus Pier, despite Madam Yu not holding back. Same chapter:

Madam Yu said that the lashes he had received wouldn’t heal in less than a month. However, right now, Wei WuXian felt that although where he had been whipped still burned and tingled, it didn’t affect his ability to move too much.

(And remember: this is the healing strength of a golden core powerful enough to seal a spirital weapon.) The thing about Wei Wuxian's time with the Jiang Clan is that most of his treatment is revealed through actual flashbacks, because he will rarely speak the unfiltered truth about his experiences. These truths are also revealed slowly rather than all at once, so taking only one thing Wei Wuxian says once and neglecting any of his other thoughts, actions, or flashbacks only reveals an incomplete picture.

Absolutely wild to read through mdzs and tally the sheer amount of lies the cultuvation world tell about and around Wei Wuxian that eventually get debunked:

Wwx purposely and maliciously ordered Wen Ning to kill Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan. Jin Zixuan died for siding with his cousin in an ambush his cousin created to kill wwx, an invited Jin guest. Jiang Yanli died protecting wwx from a cultivator stabbing him in the back, after Wen Ning was supposedly already destroyed.

Wwx attacked the Nightless City banquet for no reason, killing between 3,000-5,000 cultivators. The major clans and many smaller clans were gathered at Nightless City specifically to go back on their word to the Wen siblings to leave the Burial Mounds settlement, and to pledge to kill wwx. There weren’t even 3,000 present at the whole pledge, and wwx didn’t kill nearly all of them since a good portion of them show up to the second siege 13 years later.

Wwx ordered Wen Ning to attack the cultivators at Koi Tower, and his and Wen Qing’s surrender was a ruse to allow them close access to the clans to do so. Wwx was immobilized for three days, and otherwise does not control Wen Ning like a toy. Edit: the Jin purposely agitated Wen Ning to violence, then ensured that a majority of the cultivators in the room killed were from other clans to secure their support of the pledge conference.

Wwx had a great life at Lotus Pier, treated like he was part of the Jiang main family, only to betray them in the end. Wwx was whipped so gratuitously that he had scars as a child despite having a high-level golden core. Nobody bothered to tell him about his parents, despite Jiang Fengmian supposedly being close to at least his father before Wei Changze left the service of the clan. He was given no tablets to honor them in death, no keepsakes. Still, wwx fulfilled both of the Jiang rulers’ final wish/order to protect their son (above his own life), and wwx’s connections are why either were able to get a proper burial (unlike wwx’s own parents).

Wwx was committing evil acts and took on the Wen remnants as followers/test subjects for his dark arts. All demonic cultivators can be linked to his followers. Wwx rescued the Wen Remnants from labor camps set up, again, against the word of the cultivation world, and lived secluded in the Burial Mounds and Yiling until basically his death. The only “demonic cultivators” we see are Jin disciples who are given wwx’s notes after his death to study in an attempt to recreate his methods and secure the Jin’s power over the other great sects. Nobody cares that the Jin are doing this, even as they use other clans as test subjects.

Wwx created Wen Ning to be a weapon. Wwx resurrected Wen Ning on the request of his sister after the labor camp guards murdered him. The Jin, after lying about his destruction, try to turn him into a weapon and fail.

Wwx was killed by Jiang Cheng in a fitting moment of justice for the crimes committed against the Jiang. While Jiang Cheng’s part in the first siege was integral, he did not kill wwx. The Jiang have committed more crimes against wwx than anyone, and owe their entire continued existence to wwx.

Wwx turned to demonic cultivation because he was greedy for power. Wwx created the ghost path as his only means of surviving the Burial Mounds without a golden core. He sought no power and blatantly called out those who did (the Jin), only to be ignored because of his status. In turn, he defects from his sect and exiles himself to the Burial Mounds (with the Wen remnants), to which the sects continue to pursue him in a bid to kill the “servant” who won’t bow to them and to steal his power for themselves.

Wwx’s cultivation corrupts people, both in mentality and their health, which is why he became evil. Wwx’s cultivation path is shown to do no such thing, and nobody has precedence for saying this, as wwx’s cultivation is entirely new. On the other hand, the Nie saber technique is known to corrupt body and mind of the Nie who practice is, resulting in horrifyingly violent deaths by qi deviation, and yet no one shows care or concern about that being a problem for the whole cultivation world to have to deal with.

Wwx was ugly. Do I need to debunk this? 😭

And some ones tangentially related to him, but having to do more with the cultivation world lying to make themselves seem better than they were:

The first Burial Mounds siege was a deadly undertaking, but ultimately worth it to stop the Yiling Patriarch’s reign of terror. The siege was hundreds of trained cultivators against around 50 sickly people and a child with no tools to fight back. The only person who could fight back did not. It was the very definition of a massacre.

The participants of the first siege burned all the corpses on the Burial Mounds to release their resentment. The participants of the first siege threw the Wen remnants’ corpses into the blood pool to desecrate them, thereby imbibing them with even more resentment.

Disciples (or anyone connected to her) of Baoshan Sanren who leave her mountain are destined to meet bad ends as they are corrupted by the world. The cultivation world allows righteous people to die and their reputations to be tarnished in order to maintain their facade of “righteousness” while leaning into corruption and constant power grabs. It is often directly the fault of the cultivation world that these individuals are killed in the first place.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

((EDIT: Something I forgot to mention. IRL, the premise of a giant murder cube and the aesthetic - wall patterns, light designs, etc - of the episode come from the 1997 horror movie Cube, (see the episode’s wookieepedia page). However, while the two are very closely linked visually, the Box does not follow the movie structurally or narratively, as you can verify by simply reading the movie’s summary.))

Recap of the context for the "Box" episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc...) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here... Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do! 

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even... 

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from being a nerdy callback to Cube, giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose within the SW universe.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape... this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical. 

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire. 

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task...

 ... and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily). 

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to. 

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.  

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one. 

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku! 

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome. 

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it. 

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku... why...)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you (and desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - and yet they’re orange, the color closest to red without being red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices. 

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> could maybe destroy Sidious with Obi-Wan, but fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> political idealism is a small part of it, but fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> maybe, still fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> debatable, never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> partly true, doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku, even if that wasn’t the case in TPM) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (=refuses to?) acknowledge that. 

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s missio as they weren’t as public, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand). 

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas...

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox​ @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz​ and @kaitie85386​ for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu​ for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Mon 15 March ‘21

FIRST TIME GRAMMY AWARD WINNING ARTIST HARRY STYLES!! From the bottom of the stairs to the top of the fucking world baby, get itttt!! He won Best Pop Solo Performance for smash hit Watermelon Sugar-- the other two categories he was up for went to others but he was a dark horse for any of them so getting one is awesome! Yeah the grammys are shit but I’m so happy for him to see him receiving validation and acclaim from the industry that has never appreciated what he (and his bandmates) are and can do as artists, it’s a fucking start you know? We can enjoy the moment! Harry did! His acceptance speech was short and it feels like he was blindsided and forgot everything (including not to swear on TV and as pro as he is you know that means he was absolutely reeling, I love that) but later he said “I want to thank my fans for giving me an environment to be free to make the music that I want to make and supporting me along the way the last ten years”, yes that’s right we have helped you find a place to feel good, and “this is an incredibly sweet icing on the cake of what I get to do everyday so thank you.”

But that’s not all! He also performed, and wore things! Say what you want about Harry (or better yet please DON’T at least to me but that’s a losing battle) we always get so hyped up about even just seeing his outfits and he does not let us down! BLACK LEATHER, TITS FULLY OUT, DICK BANANA CHARM, AND A MUPPET BOA? Yeah he did that! Shirtless under a patent leather suit, I mean: wow. Very glam rock, very… well listen it’s just very GAY in like so many different ways??? Harry Lambert said they wanted “something darker, sexier, and more unexpected” which is definitely about that look I’m assuming and not the pastel thrift store rummage bin hodgepodge he wore later, unless Harry(s) and I have very different ways of interpreting “darker”. (Harry L also said “free the nipple” and we can all see that he MEANT it.) Harry red carpet-ed and accepted his award in a lavender muppet boa, tits slightly less out but still cleavagey, and with a seemingly random collection of other garments YES BABY OKAY you just WEAR THAT THEN! About that Harry L said, “we wanted to do something that felt British and eccentric, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll and a little bit camp,” but the people have spoken and they said ‘we think he looked like Cher from Clueless’ so, sorry Harry(s)! Esquire struggling to describe the look-- “the kind of thing that Styles seems to make wearable” klasjdlk the doubtful ‘seems’ is sending me. Either way we can definitely all agree on the camp part, and that the matching face mask (as seen in the audience shots and in adorbs pics of him camping it up with Lizzo backstage) is amazing, love that (even if he does spend way too much time nervously pulling it on and off omg just LEAVE IT) and it even went also with outfit number THREE (or at least it did as well as any of his anything went together lol) which was a big floppy orange coat and plaid pants and a THIRD BOA, a dignified (haha JK NOPE it’s still a muppet) black number this time.

It seems the performance was filmed in advance rather than done live-- there were clues suggesting this might be the case, but the real giveaway was when a picture from it leaked before the broadcast, lol. Way to make it so we “can’t even tell if it’s live or not” Ben, and why is he STILL so obsessed with trying to gaslight us anyway my god just say what’s prerecorded it’s fiiiine. ANYWAY Harry played Watermelon Sugar and only WS; well after all it is his GRAMMY AWARD WINNING SONG. Plus it was a really nice version, all smooth and funky, with a highlight of the night being Harry’s full on 60s girl group choreo move with the backup singers, omg. Those backing vocalists were the duo G.A.W.D., and there was extra accompaniment by fellow nominee Devonte Hynes aka Blood Orange (who also directed the performance and no I do not know what that means) and “Spencer and Josh” on horns (the closest I can find to someone crediting them so, apologies guys). Anyway! All of them (regular HS band included) were decked out in matching gucci black leather too and looking good. And Harry looked so happy to be up there performing, just beaming like a lighthouse, so overall- good good stuff, I just keep on dancin!

The real bombshell of the performance though was subtle and needed confirmation after for the excitement to really hit-- it was Sarah drumming  decked out in tight black leather and visibly pregnant!! That’s right, band drummer Sarah Jones is PREGNANT by (Grammy Award winning) guitarist Mitch, there’s a HARRY STYLES BAND BABY on the way!!!! WHAT A NIGHT! It wasn’t enough for Harry to find love in his own band, he’s somehow cupid-ing that energy all over the place and spreading it around, AMAZING!

And Liam comes through with not just a sweet congratulations for Harry (“what a huge moment, proud to be your brother” awwww) but also the final word on the performance look- goddammit it IS one of the rejected Best Song Ever video looks, LMAOOOO. But did he tag HSHQ instead of Harry directly in acknowledgment of how the awards system really works and that they are all to be congratulated or simply because it was easier? We will never know.

Additional tidbits-- bassist Hynes was apparently playing creative director Molly Hawkins’ dad’s bass- did we know her dad was a famous bassist who played with Fleetwood Mac and many other 70s stars?! If I did I had definitely forgotten! And more Molly news-- she’s also pregnant!! Harry will soon be surrounded by quarantine babies, dreams really coming true huh? Harry posted a pic of himself with Mitch and Devonte looking very cooool, we saw the ceramic watermelons label execs were sent for the WS release last year, and Rebecca Ferguson who knows 1D from way back when (and has recently drawn attention for talking frankly about how fucked up the industry is and about having seen unnamed boy band members literally slammed against the wall by their management) congratulated Harry and posted a couple of baby pop star Harry pics, cuuuute. Louis’ merch handlers, in response to no complaints whatsoever, sent out emails apologizing. They say they’ve run out of lanyards which were meant to be sent out so they will “be adding a freebie which we know you’ll enjoy” to affected customers’ orders. That is sucky about the lanyards but that’s customer care! Niall posted about his cool bright limited edition merch to remind that it will be gone gone gone tonight and also shared a pretty and touching picture from a the large anti violence rally held in London to protest the killing of Sarah Everard today. And finally some good advice from Bebe Rexha, loved by larries; she says she loves us right back but please don’t kill anyone for not streaming her new song! Yes good plan.

[shimmershae]

My thoughts on Episode 3--Hunted.

 Most of you lovelies already realize this, but my thoughts tend to zig and zag quite a bit, lol.  So.  To save some of you the headache and spare you from seeing spoilers you’d rather not see yet, I’m again placing them behind a cut.  

First things first.  I have totally turned into Yvette Nicole Brown with her TWD notebooks, lol, and I’m not even sorry.  I just felt like it would be fun to go back when the final episode is in the books and see how well my thoughts from these early episodes line up with what I’m feeling when we say our (not-so) final goodbyes.  

But that’s enough about that. Let’s get to this thing.  

It really is insane how very much I love Melissa McBride.  Just hearing her doing the previously on TWD recap voiceover makes me ridiculously happy.  

Cole!  Dude!  We hardly knew ya.  

Not gonna lie.  That first shot of Maggie in all the chaos reminded of a shirt I’ve seen.  It says--”Well, well, well.  If it isn’t the consequences of my actions.”  

I have to hand it to Angela and the rest of her team.  These opening scenes--on all 3 episodes--have been BOMB so far.  They really hook you in right away.  At least IMHO.  

I realize I’m behind the game on this little tidbit, but how much do I adore the fact that Dog is now in the opening credits?  

Okay.  Alexandria might look like it’s been on some kind of post-apocalyptic bender but all our girls are looking beautiful as ever.  Maybe it’s Maybelline, lol.  

I love to see Kelly and Carol still gravitating toward each other.  It really speaks to each woman’s heart.  Carol wants to make amends so badly and Kelly just has the most lovely, warm, forgiving heart.  

Carol’s point about Alexandria still needing the horses to help with the heavy lifting and pointing out the walls and rebuilding won’t matter quite as much if they’re limited by their  hunger and what they can physically lift on their own isn’t wrong.  But I’m sure the same viewers that were okay with Daryl and Co. going out on Maggie’s suicide mission (using the same reasoning) and saying it made sense for the bigger picture will pretend not to recognize that the same element is there in Carol’s desire to go out there and look for the horses.  You know.  Because it was Carol’s idea and not that of their fave(s).  

Aaron, Man.  Or maybe I should say Angela.   You just had to put a pit of dread in my belly mentioning Buttons like that.  RIP, Buttons.  You deserved better.  I’m still traumatized.  

Look at all the babies bonding.  Look at RJ getting to sit at the big kid table.  

“My mom always comes back.”  She damn well better.  Those babies need her.  Until she does, though, Uncle Daryl and Aunt Carol (and Aunt Rosita and everybody else) are going to be there.  

Anyway.  Poor RJ.  He barely ever gets any lines, lol.  

Hershel and Judith are obviously the mini-adults in this group and baby Rhee is already more cynical and jaded than his sweet daddy was until they reached Alexandria and the wheels started to come off.  

So.  Does Maggie just think everybody’s already dead here or what?  Hmm.  

You know.  Any building can be creepy AF when the lights are off and it’s dark, lol.  Any building.  

So much darkness so far this season.  I’m going to have to invest in some blackout curtains.  I just know it.  

Where are all those stairs leading?  Why am I thinking of Hitchcock?  Am I mixing up my scary, suspenseful movies?  Probably.  

Of fucking course, Maggie dropped her flashlight.  Thank goodness she had that lighter at the ready just before Ghost Face Reaper took a swipe at her.  

Is that Father G with a screwdriver impaled in his thigh?  Listen.  These people deserve a Mega Bottle of pain killers and a week just vegging out in a soft, luxurious bed.  

All these horror movie tropes.  Some of them are cheesy, yes.  But I’m totally here for it.  

LMAO.  That’s it, Maggie.  A good old punch in the nuts works every time.  

Alden really is having a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.  

Negan is still Negan.  Self-serving and looking out for number one.  But I believe the man really does feel the group is his group too.  He’s like that long lost, sketchy uncle nobody wants to acknowledge much less invite to the dinner table, but that bond?  However thin?  Is there.  

I am both hating that Maggie is being forced to work with the man that murdered her husband (my baby Glenn) and finding it fascinating the lengths she’s willing to go to survive.  This your plan, Angela?  

Rosita and Carol!  How sad is it that the last really significant scene I can remember the two of these women sharing was way back?  Before Rick and Co. attacked Negan’s outpost and Maggie and Carol were subsequently taken?  If only the show had done more of these kind of scenes.  

How much do I love all the girls working together?  Gimps would never.  They’d all be stuck back at Alexandria minding the kids and the community.  

Shallow aside--Rosita is so pretty in this scene.  

Rosita being worried about Carol honestly makes my heart hurt, because it’s about damn time more of them actually did.  Her saying Abraham is trying to tell her something in her dreams is interesting.  Angela sure loves her dreams, doesn’t she?  

Where are Daryl’s dreams, hmm?  No.  Seriously.  I guess they want to give some viewers plausible deniability until the bitter end.  

“Really?  We’re just gonna go toward the screaming?  Cool.”  Hahaha.  You know.  Even the smart people in horror movies sometimes bite it, Negan.  Just saying.  Maggie really does need to “stop running up the staircase” when she could just run out the front door though, lol.  

Poor Duncan.  I think you could have been another Tyreese, Jerry type for me.  

WTF does this show have against horses?  Those poor creatures.  

Kelly is totally me right now.  I’d be freaking inconsolable.  

Carol needed that hug.  Thank you, Magna.  From the bottom of this tired fangirl’s heart, thank you.  

Why give us that beautiful, golden shot with the horses when you’re planning to stab us through the heart later and twist the knife.  Oh.  Yeah.  That’s exactly why.  

Oh snap!  Father G’s delivery when he tells that Reaper “I’m not.  God isn’t here anymore.”  Cold as ice.  

Judas.  That the Reapers’ work.  Or.  Damn.  Either way, that’s harsh.  

Back to what Alden was saying.  All these oprhaned children.  Who’s going to take on Adam if he dies?  That poor kid has had a rough go of it.  Knowing that, makes you wonder what Alden was thinking volunteering for the suicide mission.  

Omigosh.  There went Agatha.  Terrible way to go.  Right, Beatrice?  

I’m sobbing.  Carol with the horse.  That hurt my baby so much but she hurt herself for her family the same way she has been doing since the Prison.  Melissa Mcbride?  When she cries, I cry.  Every effin’ time.  Aaron being there just made it hurt more.  But at least someone was there to see how and really take in how she continues to break pieces of herself off to keep her family as whole and safe and happy as she can.  

Rewinding a minute--that Magna and Carol conversation.  I get Magna’s reasoning too.  I do.  But Angela is just making everything so dire right now so that the sun when Connie is ultimate found shines a ltitle brighter.  

Those babies know they’re eating horse.  I could never.  

That’s got to be a different Coco.  She’s even smaller.  But she’s gorgeous.  

Fucking finally.  Angela having the other characters notice after an eternity of being blind to it, just how much Carol sacrifices of herself for them.  It’s so long overdue and I imagine Rosita’s even more worried for Carol now.  It’s a shame it’s taken 11 seasons.  My baby’s had blood on her hands trying to keep her family safe and whole and happy and fed for a long damn time.  So heartbreaking watching her try to scrub the blood away.  

Sweet, sweet hug that Kelly gave Magna.  She’s such a sweetheart kid sis to all of them, isn’t she?  

Interesting place of refuge.  A gutted church.  A visual symbol, Angela, of where Maggie and the rest of our people are now perhaps?  

“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?  Being reckless with sombody’s life...”  Maggie.  Maggie.  Those words would have hit so much harder if we hadn’t spent the majority of the last 2.5 episodes watching you ignore sound advice just because it came out of the mouth of somebody you (justifiably) hate.  

But will Alden be there when Maggie and Negan get back?  That is the question.  Or will he eventually Lucille himself?  

That little bit of lineup Negan music to remind the audience of Negan lovers and sympathizers that he once took great pleasure in murderously swinging a bag at people’s heads was a nice, subtle touch there.  Like agree with her or not, Maggie  is literally left to rely  on the hope, however small it is, that Negan has changed just enough that he won’t try to finish a job he taken on years before--killing what’s left of her.  

Oh lawd.  Next episode sees the return of a character literally nobody asked for.  How excited am I not?  

Dog better not be harmed or so help me.  

Now for Angela’s weekly explanations of WTF she/there were thinking because they been doing this plausible deniability thing so long some people out there watching with biased, muddy stan glasses can no longer separate head canon from canon.  

Is Maggie worried at all about Daryl or does she just assume his superhero powers are in full effect in this episode?  

“You can’t really say it wasn’t going to happen anyway.”  Not Angela pointing out that simply laying the blame for literally everything bad that ever happens at Carol’s feet isn’t the answer.  Say it louder for those in the back.  Alpha was going to do what Alpha wanted to do.  

“There is love there.  There is respect there.  However, there’s also frustration...”  You damn skippy.  Friendships and human relationships are complex AF.  Like Carol. She’s honestly one of the most complicated characters on this show and any show, IMHO.  That’s what makes her so memorable and such a lightning rod for discussion.  

I know I might be in a minority, but I really feel like they need more of those little scenes between the kids to keep things real.  

Kang saying she always feels like she’s going to get murdered in a staircase or parking lot is relatable, funny, and sad all at the same time.  It’s a girl thing.  

Why is Carol’s story giving me Dark Knight vibes?  Like I feel like she’ll gladly shoulder the burden of their distrust, their hate, or their judgment as long as the hard choices she makes keeps them safe.  And she’s still ultimately going to come back to save their asses even when they forsake her.  Just like Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Am I reaching too far, lol?  Because sometimes I do that.  

Anyway.  This is the third episode of the season and the third episode in a row that I mostly enjoyed.  I don’t know if I’m just so relieved and happy to have all the characters and my show back or what, but overall?  I’ve been pleased with the episodes and found something to love in all of them.  

There’s a much stronger horror vibe woven throughout Season 11 so far.  I feel like it’s a return to the roots of the show and I like that.  Literally none of the characters are making perfect choices and this viewer is here for it.  My only complaint so far is there hasn’t been enough Carol but what we’ve been given has felt like a gift and significant in a way that Gimps’ version was not.  Also?  I really hope the trend of the ladies working together and supporting each other continues because they rule the TWD world, lol.  

Hope you enjoyed at least some of my TWD word vomit.  

Until next episode.  

[thepaperclip]

Chapter 3 Heist Time Let’s Gooo

Heist time, and notably, Jodio is the one who is left outside as the lookout. Either this is because he’s best suited for outdoors work (November Rain hasn’t been shown active indoors yet), he’s legit the best lookout as the smallest and sneakiest of the group, or Dragona possibly would rather Jodio be outside and thus have the best chance of getting away in the instance of an emergency escape.

Dragona calling Smooth Operators their “kids” that’s so adorable awww.

Dragona: “We’re only here for the Diamond, no one touch anything else.” Paco and Usagi:

^ no notes lmaoo

Also Usagi just cutting up a painting when he’s supposed to just get a diamond and leave like no evidence…instead of just…..taking the canvas off the wall…..Usagi, honey, dear….

Also Paco don’t believe that I’m forgetting you nabbing those $20s, not sure how it’ll play into things later, but for the upcoming…stuff, Paco and Usagi are established to have cash money and a pair of scissors respectively.

Whatcha doing with those volcanoes and volcanic rocks, Rohan? Whatcha got there, Rohan?

Usagi and his chemistry and geology knowledge, we stan this multitalented hot dog boi

I love the way Jodio not only is looking through the Rohan’s book for clues, but is also kinda getting distracted with little fun tidbits he finds that has nothing to do with the heist. Like being super excited about seeing behind the scenes art for the manga he likes, or legitimately finding the pictures of the dog cute.

If I recall correctly, this dog was featured in Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan, and is most likely a fun Easter Egg from Araki. Though, it’s also very fun to speculate if this makes this iteration of Rohan just literally the same character as the Parts 1-6 timeline based on just how similar this one is to that one.

What is up with that cat??? No one knows, not the teen robbers, not Rohan, not any of us in the audience, and arguably not Araki either (I kid, he definitely has some sort of plan given how carefully he planted the presence of the cat around)

(Side note what if there are two cats the entire time lol)

Jodio does notably seem to be legitimately worried about the consequences of the other teens getting caught, or at least just Dragona. He’s willing to tell them to get out of there so they could try again some other day. Dragona also seems to listen, however both siblings are cut off when the safe is found.

Rohan had the safe in his lab area behind some sort of bookshelf it looks like. Also, Rohan’s mansion is huge what sort of money is this man making.

Dragona is goaded into committing to completing the robbery, and good thing Jodio manages to distract Rohan to buy enough time.

I’m not sure why Jodio seems to have made the cactus poke Rohan, maybe to provide further distraction? Either way it does seem to further clue Rohan in that Stand Users are around.

The things of note for the upcoming Stand Battle: the cat, the certain A’a rocks inside the safe for an unknown reason, and that the cat’s Stand seems to be some sort of tripwire effect. I wonder if Araki is further developing on some ideas for applications of Stone Free, but right now we don’t know much about the stand.

There’s also a second stage to this Stand Battle—Jodio realizes that Rohan may be a Stand User, and he might have to work to either keep Rohan from coming inside while also keeping himself hidden, or all present parties are going to have to fight the cat.

Note that chapter 1 has mentioned that basically, “4 people wasn’t enough, there would never have been enough people for this job”. So it looks like this heist is only going to become more and more complex as the chapters come. In what way, it’s unclear, but it looks like a LOT of setup for the rest of the series is happening from the get-go here.

I’m still waiting on how Rohan is going to play into this, given that he has a reality-breaking stand, is a “make your own luck” sort of man, and has the closest possibility of direct contact with Jodio, who believes in a “Mechanism,” where with careful calculation and action, Jodio will use it to get luck to go his way.

Furthermore, Araki has previously explored the ideas of fate and karma, what with the “disasters” and “luck” events that played heavily into Parts 7 and 8 (Valentine using the Saint’s Corpse to manipulate entropy and guarantee fortune for his reality, Wonder of U and Tooru pulling Final Destination moves on Josuke as he altered that “karma” in order to win, using his status as a sort of miraculous being in order to balance out Wonder of U’s calamities and break the curse).

I do not think it is insignificant that Araki is having a random stray cat who has nothing to do with the parties of the heist (no one owns that cat and it had come from basically nowhere) be the one that is acting as a spanner in the works for this heist. Especially given Jodio’s fixation on “Mechanism”. He is doing his job correctly and has his eyes on the goal, and yet it seems Fate is throwing an unexpected hurdle at all of them in the form of this stray cat who is a Stand User.

Oh I’ve just realized, could this be another version of Stray Cat? There is a cactus and a cat in this chapter, after all. And also, this cat seems to be able to utilize a fishing line-like string to wrap around its victims who touch the string in any way.

Also it does not escape my notice that Jodio has put his hood up. Is this a “flip the baseball cap to a different angle for go time” or a way to hide himself/protect himself? Who knows! Can’t wait for next chapter!

Jojolands live-blogging let’s goooooooo

1st impressions under the cut:

Jodio is such a wild name especially considering there’s a Spanish meaning (look it up lol). It makes me think of the Jorge Joestar novel where it says that Erina spelled George II’s name as “Jorge” to keep the “Jo” and it’s like ah yes, it’ll play out how you think in the Spanish-speaking Canary Islands.

Jodio’s narration makes him sound like an actual 15-year-old, and there’s something a bit charming about that. He goofs around and wants to become rich, but he also follows other people’s orders and definitely is flying by his pants as he goes through this process. Araki did a great job establishing Jodio through his narrative voice, stuff like, This may sound like bullshit” and his tangent admiring Meryl’s designs.

There’s definitely the “Giorno” connections (Giorno was the child of both Jonathan and Dio and Jodio is like combining “Jonathan” and “Dio” as names, both are 15 in their stories and have jobs connected with crime, and both of them have clear ambitions). Both of them definitely are observant and can read people very well. However, unlike Giorno, Jodio is not a smooth criminal. He reacts with violence first as opposed to trying to charm his way out of situations. Jodio’s been a low-level grunt for gangs since he was a child, rather than Giorno being a solo petty thief who, once completing initiation, dethrones the Boss and takes charge in like a week.

Another notable thing in this story is that Jodio is a Jojo who comes with a sibling, an older sibling at that. Jodio is definitely protective of Dragona, and also defers to their choices, and listens when Dragona begs Jodio to hold back. I love their rapport, it definitely feels like accurate sibling energy. They crime together, goof off with each other, both of them protect their mother and each other. I love how Dragona was begging for the police to leave Jodio alone because he’s a kid, a minor, and that Dragona holds Jodio back from going too far when beating up the cops who’d assaulted them. I also love how Jodio saw what was going on with Dragona and went “aight time for violence” immediately.

Definitely a new dynamic for the Jojo and JoBro, and also a refreshing take on Jojo sibling dynamics. Jonathan and Dio was about the worst way siblings could go (understatement), and Josuke and Joshu plus the other Higashikata children had a rocky dynamic given that…well, the amnesiac teenager being adopted into the family is a lot to get used to, so in some ways Jojolion was in part the Higashikatas learning how to accept Josuke and give him the family he needs. Johnny and Nicholas seemed to have a positive relationship, but of course that ended with tragedy given Nicholas’ passing.

Regarding the discourse over Dragona’s pronouns, I admit, as someone who is cis, I don’t feel I have a right to comment on this detail beyond that this is only the first chapter, and we don’t know how Araki will handle it for the rest of the run. Given that Araki is a cis Japanese man in his 60s, and that his writing and portrayals of other marginalized folks doesn’t have the best track record (Part 2 the anime had to cut out some rather unsavory caricatures of Mexicans, and Part 3 tended to play into uhh questionable “exotic land” stereotypes especially along Southeast Asia), I wouldn’t recommend getting one’s hopes up for the most stellar execution of representation for Dragona here. I will definitely say that no matter what happens with Dragona, it’s a Your Mileage May Vary situation, but beyond that, I’ll leave that to people who know more and have lived experience when it comes to talking about Dragona’s gender identity.

Meryl is the tallest Jojo character now after the Pillar Men and that is amazing also, yeah, how many hustles does she have? The fact that she’s a school principal as well as a small business owner as well as a crime boss (not sure how big her gang is though). I’m sure there’s a joke about the US educational system in here somewhere lol.

Also, a Jojo in a US public highschool. No notes lmao

There’s several references to our time, like Dua Lipa, Uber, and Covid. We can assume that means this takes place past 2020, most likely around 2022-2023 since no one is wearing masks, but Dragona doesn’t like the officer getting that close and cites social distancing as a reason—notably, the officer is shown as Asian since he asks “do you not want me to get close to you because of my race?” which also references the spike of hate crimes against Asians during the height of the pandemic. There’s also a bit of a meta mark of the times given how Araki went ACAB in the first 5 pages of chapter 1.

The Filthy Frank lookin’ ass dude. No notes lol

This part’s theme seems to be focusing on a new concept called “Mechanisms”. As far as I can understand about how it works given what we have so far about it, it seems to be something to do with “social systems.” Jodio built a social system of “trust” through being a good Gofer for the gang he works for, while the classmate he compares himself to is bullied because he doesn’t have a system like that for the school. Even though the unnamed student is larger, maybe smarter, and presumably wealthier, he’s singled out for bullying because he doesn’t have a good “mechanism” and will be due to leave the school soon. We’ll have to see how this plays out in the coming chapters…

HEIST HEIST HEIST HEIST

The jewel in the heist will not be how Jodio gets rich, or else, perhaps it will prove more trouble than it’s worth. I say that based on nothing. Araki might pull a different trope regarding this jewel, but I doubt he’d make this into a Maguffin for very long.

[maddiewritesstucky]

Call me maybe (but only during business hours)

A smutty gift for @raynakiasbel​, for her endless patience with my infuriatingly slow writing and inability to focus on one thing at a time! 

Pairing: Steve/Bucky

Rating: Explicit

Wordcount: 3308

Tags: CEO Steve, College Student Bucky, Poorly-Timed Phone Sex, Anal Fingering, Masturbation, Dirty Talk, Light Daddy Kink, Dom/Sub Undertones

Part 1 of the SugarVerse series on Ao3 

Bucky is most definitely not watching the clock.

His eyes have absolutely not been glued to the LED display on the bedside table for what feels like a hundred goddamn years, watching the little white lines form number after number, blinking their way into the formation that will mean he can pick up his phone, and call Steve.

That would be all kinds of pathetic, and Bucky is not that kind of boyfriend.

He’s certainly not the kind of boyfriend who’s already fixing to climb out of his skin on day three (three!) of Steve’s out-of-town business trip. Bucky is one of those autonomous, self-sufficient boyfriends, who is entirely too busy with his own obscenely full schedule to care about the fact that he’s not getting dicked down at his every whim this week.

He has midterms to study for, and hours to log at StarkTech to go towards his internship, and Nat’s surprise birthday party to plan even though she’s literally impossible to surprise…he doesn’t have the mental real estate to spare on thirst right now. He might have become a whole other kind of hoe since being exposed to the many splendors of Steve Rogers’ cock, but twitching for it before they’ve even hit the seventy-two hour mark?

That would be highly problematic, if that was happening.

Which it isn’t.

Bucky is well accustomed to flying solo when Steve’s off in corporate alter-ego mode; he’s done this countless times over the past few months since he moved in with Steve, and he’d made his peace with it long before that. You don’t couple up with the CEO of an internationally renowned architecture firm and expect to see his face at the dinner table every night, and for the most part, Bucky has no complaints about having the stupidly plush bed all to his starfishing self a few nights a month.

It’s just...there’s a method to this, usually. And that method does not involve three entire days of near radio silence.

When Steve goes away, even on his busier trips, he always finds time to call Bucky at least once a day, even if it’s just five minutes as he’s crawling into bed to say goodnight. They’ll text, and Steve will send emails that are endearingly formal because his brain tends to stay in CEO-mode 24/7 when he’s on business trips, and they’ll generally tide one another over with tidbits of cyber-affection until they get back in the same physical space.  

But this time? They’ve hardly been in contact at all. And it’s on Bucky, too, at least in part - he’s been swamped with his own workload the past few weeks, struggling to find quality time or head space even in the few days just before Steve left, and all they’ve managed so far is a few sporadic messages in their rare moments of down-time, which have so far been chaotically misaligned.

It’s been a drag, if Bucky’s honest, and he can occupy himself all he wants with his exam prep and his party-plotting, but at the end of the day…

Bucky’s just a boy, laying in front of a clock, asking his dick to hold out just a few more minutes.

Because right now, it’s 10:42pm.

It’s 10:42pm, which means that in exactly three minutes, Steve will be sliding into the crisp white sheets of whatever lavish hotel bed he’s being put up in; buck-ass naked because he’s as stringent on his no-pyjamas policy as he is on his bed time, and in exactly three minutes…

Bucky’s gonna call him, and phone-fuck the soul right out of his offensively perfect body.

He flips onto his back and nestles into the pillows, a dumb grin already fixing to his face in his hormone-fuelled stupor. The lights of the city outside the floor-to-ceiling penthouse windows bathe his naked skin in soft orange-gold, and his hand migrates of its own accord to the semi he’s been rocking ever since it occurred to him that he could just straight up call Steve and spring a jerk-sesh on him.

The whole thing feels deliciously sneaky-skanky. He’s never done this before, just cold-called Steve with an x-rated agenda. They’ve had phone sex before, a great many times in fact, but there’s always a lead-in; a text exchange turned sordid that spirals into a video call straight out of Bucky’s horny teenage fantasies. 

But he’s never gone in jizz-first, ask-questions-later, and as certain as he is that Steve will be entirely on board, it feels just risky enough to have Bucky a little high off the adrenaline of it.

Here lies Bucky, Queen of the Sluts! Stretched out bare atop cream colored sheets, lit up by the New York skyline! Dick in hand and filth on the tip of his tongue!

He is power! He is scandal! He is ready for this!

He pulls the lube out from its hiding place under the pillow and slicks himself up, stroking slow as he tries to summon some small measure of nonchalance about the whole thing. He has a vision for how he wants this to go, and it does not involve him losing his cool the second he hears Steve’s voice on the other end of the line.

This is about seduction, about surprising Steve with some old-school nasty, no video or visuals involved - just Bucky’s filthy mouth and vivid imagination, and he’s determined to keep it together long enough to paint Steve a picture he can jack it to.

He pulls up Steve’s contact and waits out the final torturous minute with his heart in his throat, hitting the call button the second it ticks over to go-time. He hits the speakerphone button, dropping the phone onto the pillow next to him, and holds his breath through the four rings it takes for Steve to pick up.

“...James?”

And oh, but that bodes well...Steve uses his real name in two contexts, and two contexts only - when Bucky visits him at work and he’s in business mode, and when he’s got Bucky flat on his back underneath him, letting him have it.

If Steve’s already keyed up tonight? This just got a lot more interesting.

“Mm, there it is,” Bucky heaves a deep sigh, “that’s what I needed, that voice...”

His mind’s eye conjures up visions of Steve spread out across the bed, taut lines of muscle and bare flesh all laid out. He’s probably just had a shower, so his skin would be all warm and pink, smelling like soap and aftershave; his hair all fluffy from that irreverent way he has of rubbing it towel-dry...god, Bucky misses him.

“James? Are you alright?”

He can practically hear Steve’s brows drawing together in that way they do when he’s overworked; a tight-wound tension in his voice that Bucky has every confidence he can allay before the night’s through.

“Mm, be a lot better if it was your hand wrapped around my cock right now,” Bucky drawls, rolling his body for his audience of no one, “but I guess I’ll just have to settle for fucking my fist to the sound of your voice. Can you hear me touching myself, Daddy?”

He breathes a soft groan as he strokes himself slick and languid, and Steve is silent for a long moment that Bucky’s brain is all too happy to color in with pornographic images of how Steve might be listening; where his hands might be wandering, how his cock would be filling at the mental picture Bucky’s painting. Bucky thinks this might just be the best idea he’s ever had, and he doesn’t hold back on letting Steve hear exactly how good he’s feeling about his decision...

...Until Steve clears his throat, and unceremoniously hits him with an ice-cold dousing of you-done-fucked-up.

“I’m in a meeting right now, I have two clients with me.”  

There is zero inflection in his tone, and if Bucky thought he had experienced true panic before, he was mistaken. He can physically feel himself paling; his mouth dropping open soundlessly, humiliation warring with plain confusion as to why the hell Steve is still working at this ridiculous hour.

And then it clicks.

Horribly, harrowingly clicks.

Steve isn’t working at stupid o’clock at night.

In the perpetual haze of Bucky’s overworked brain and Steve’s ever-changing schedule, Bucky had forgotten that this trip was taking Steve to Hawaii.

For Steve, it isn’t slutty phone-sex hours. It’s very sensible, 4:45pm strictly-business hours.

“Ohmygod,” Bucky gasps, bolting upright and looking desperately around the room like it might hold the solution to his colossal screw up, “Steve, I completely forgot--”

“Mr Barnes, I can give you exactly two minutes of my time right now because I realize it’s been difficult to touch base recently,” Steve interrupts, his tone cooling abruptly with the air of professional detachment and veiled authority Bucky’s heard him use on work calls a thousand times. ��Can you tell me exactly what the issue is with the redesign?”

...Bucky blinks, breath caught in his throat as he scrambles to string together some sense from Steve’s response.

Steve hasn’t mentioned any specific projects lately, is Bucky supposed to know something about a redesign? Was there something he--

Oh.

Oh.

His brain and his dick catch on at the same time in a borderline painful rush of blood. He hears Steve pull back from the phone to address his clients, placating them with an apology and the assurance that this won’t take long, and Jesus Christ...Steve is actually doing this.

Steve is actually going to let this happen, going to let Bucky have one-sided phone sex with him while he sits there in some boardroom, with actual clients sitting right in front of him.

What the fuck.

Bucky’s breath leaves him in a rush as he drops back against the pillows and wraps a frantic hand around himself. “The issue is you’ve been gone three fucking days and I wanna sit on your face.”

“Mm, I see why that’s problematic,” Steve muses, cool and unaffected, “what exactly do you need from me?”

God, Bucky can just picture it - Steve sitting there looking like a fucking wet dream in one of his distractingly well-fitting suits, with his hair swept perfectly over and his beard trimmed just close enough to show off the sharp cut of his jaw; radiating that air of quiet authority that makes Bucky want to bounce in his lap until he dies...

Bucky knows for a fact that Steve’s face will be betraying precisely none of what’s happening on the other end of the line, and why the hell is that such a turn on?

“Well I was gonna describe in graphic detail all the things I want you to do to me when you get back,” Bucky huffs, breaths coming faster already, “but if I’m on the clock now, guess I’ll have to settle for sayin’ I need you to bring that dick home ASAP...fuckin’ miss it.”

“I see,” Steve sighs, “well I’m not back in New York for a few days yet, how do you plan to manage this in the interim?”

Bucky curses under his breath, tightening his grip on himself. “Just have to fuck myself, imagine it’s you.”  He sounds every bit as unconvinced of the efficacy of this plan as they both know he is, and Steve hums thoughtfully in response.

“I’m going to need more detail, paint me a picture here.”

Bucky knows he’s blushing, feels the heat of it all the way down his chest, and fuck this shouldn’t be as hot as it is. Dirty talking at Steve and getting nothing back but clipped responses, void of emotion and the usual undercurrent of affection he’s become accustomed to?

Work-Steve needs to come to the bedroom more often.

“I’ll touch myself, like I’m doing right now,” he twists his grip a little on the upstroke, hissing at the change in sensation, “get my fist all wet and tight around my cock...pretend it’s your mouth.”

How close are Steve’s clients sitting to him? Steve wouldn’t be letting this happen if there was any way they could hear...but what if one of them has some kind of medical condition that gives them enhanced hearing? What if one of them can read minds and is hearing this entire conversation play out in stereo quality in their head?

Why is there a part of Bucky that hopes one or both of those things are true?!

“...And?” Steve prompts, almost brusque, and Bucky gives himself a second to revel in the way his dick twitches for the hard edge in Steve’s voice.

“And I’ll, fuck- ” Bucky stutters, rocking his hips with the rhythm of his strokes, pushing himself up through his grip, “I’ll use my toys, fingerfuck myself.”

“Right, well why don’t you go ahead and start that for me now,” Steve says, off-hand; pulling back from the phone to place an honest-to-god coffee order with the oblivious intern who’s now seemingly in the room too, and Bucky’s never felt more of an affinity for the whole bored-and-ignored thing.  

He slicks up the fingers of his free hand and shifts a little onto his side, hiking a knee up as he slips a finger inside himself.

“Can I take that as a yes, Mr Barnes?” Steve asks at the breathy moan Bucky lets out as he presses in first with one, and then with two fingers, and Bucky nods frantically even though Steve can’t see him.

“Yes, fuck...I'm doin' it...feels so fucking good, Steve.”

And it does. It’s a difficult angle, and he can't quite hit the spot he wants to inside himself, but the steady stroke-tug against his rim while his fist flies over his cock is working for him; winding him towards what would, in any other non time-constrained circumstance, be an embarrassingly fast orgasm.

He can hear Steve shuffling papers, making quiet sounds of agreement along with whatever conversation is going on in the background between his clients whilst they wait, unknowing, and Bucky can’t decide whether it’s a blessing or an immense disappointment that Steve has to bite his tongue right now; that he can’t unleash any of the filth he’d definitely be spitting if he didn’t have an audience. 

Steve fucking loves to run his mouth, and Bucky loves to hear it; lives for the endlessly colorful obscenities Steve comes out with in the throws of it.

Just listen to you, he’d be laughing a little; his voice dripping with that indulgent, self-satisfied grin he gets, so goddamn easy for it, ain’t that right baby? Three fuckin’ days and you’re gagging for it...should be ashamed of yourself…

But Steve is in a very public forum right now, in the middle of a meeting no less, trying to give the impression that he’s very decidedly not having phone sex. Right now, he’s Steve Rogers - CEO, consummate professional.

But he is also an asshole, and when he asks Bucky “do you feel you have a firm grasp on the situation, or would a second set of hands be helpful on this one?” Bucky swears he can hear that faint hint of a smirk all the way across the fucking country.

“Might just have to go find myself a second set of hands if you stay away too long,” Bucky retorts, emboldened by the distance, and a little morbidly curious to see what sassing gets him when Steve can’t say shit about it.

Turns out, what it gets him is a full-body shiver and a throb between his thighs as Steve’s tone dips to somewhere in the realm of politely-veiled threat. “I would not advise that, Mr Barnes.”

It occurs to Bucky, then, that this won’t just be done and dusted once they hang up. At the end of the week, Steve will come back to New York, and he will absolutely have some Things To Say about this little interruption.

He can picture it now, the way Steve will stand there all calm, staring him down with his mouth upticked at the corner while Bucky fumbles his way through an explanation. 

He’ll probably do that thing where he doesn’t say much but his eyes say everything, and Bucky will have to try really hard to seem remorseful even though they’ll both know he’s not actually all that sorry. And Steve won’t want him to be, not really, but it’ll be something he can use to their mutual benefit, nonetheless.

Fuck, Steve might spank him.

Bucky smothers a moan into the pillow next to him, twisting his fingers inside himself and brushing his thumb across the head of his cock as he turns that thought over, Steve bending him over his knee, or better yet, over his desk...

“Oh,” Bucky gasps, a sudden rush of heat twisting tight in his gut, “fuck, I’m gonna come.”

Steve huffs a vaguely incredulous laugh, and there’s a faint creaking sound like he’s settling further back in his chair. “Oh really? Who authorized that?”  

Bucky lets out a deeply undignified whine, his whole body strung tight enough to snap; caught between the sensations of his hand moving frantically over his dick and his fingers scissoring inside himself.

“Come on,” he whimpers, teetering on the knife edge of losing it, “tell me I can finish, please.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

Oh, fuck him, fuck him...how is he still edging Bucky when he was the one who put the rush order on this?

“Please, Daddy,” Bucky doesn’t try to hide the desperation in his voice as he changes tact, “if you don’t authorize this orgasm I think I’m gonna go blind, just fucking let me come!”

Steve pauses a beat, humming a considering sound. “No, I’m not comfortable signing off on that. We’re tabling this until I get back to New York.”

Bucky freezes, both hands stilling; his face crumbling into a mask of abject disbelief.  “You can’t be serious?”  His stomach drops, even as something in the back of his mind says he really should have seen this coming...or, not coming, as is the case.

“I'm sure we can come to a far more satisfying resolution in person,” Steve says, maddeningly cavalier.

Bucky’s gearing up to plead his case, but Steve’s not done ruining his night yet.

“In fact, Mr Barnes,” he piles on, “I’d like to make you personally responsible for ensuring no further action is taken on the matter until I return. Can I trust you with this?”

Bucky gapes down at his poor, oblivious cock still standing at eager attention in his grasp, unaware of the disaster that’s just befallen them, and he takes his hands off himself with a pained groan.

“This is criminal,” he objects, flopping heavily onto his back and throwing his arms out to his sides, “if my dick falls off, it’s your fault!”

“Great! Glad to hear it,” Steve chirps, as if he's not the worst person alive, “I’ll be in touch.”

“Whatever,” Bucky scowls at the shadows stretching across the ceiling, willing his mind off the throbbing ache of injustice between his thighs, “I’m totally not answering any of your calls.”

Steve’s smile bleeds into his tone a little when he responds, the closest he’s come to fondness yet. “Okay, speak soon, Mr Barnes.”

Bucky tries, really tries, to inject some petulance into his tone as he signs off with a grumbled “love you, I guess,” but he can’t quite bring himself to sulk as much as he feels the situation warrants.

After all, in exactly four days, Steve will come back to New York.

He’ll come home, and they’ll laugh about this, and in exactly four days…

Steve will make him forget what he was even upset about in the first place.

(Part 2 of the series here!)

[feuilly-cakes]

Eclipse - 3* Review

Alright, so, this book dragged on. Lots happened, but in my opinion it should have been split up, perhaps pre-graduation and post-graduation. I couldn't tell you what order most things happened, whether half the scenes were necessary, or whether I really enjoyed most of the book, because it was just so long. I can say I didn't hate it, and though I was wishing for it to be over by page 400 I knew certain points that were upcoming that had to happen first, so I used them as little goals to reach. For a first time reader I'm not sure how well the length of this would go down as the plot is a bit repetitive, with Bella running off to La Push, going back home, running off to La Push again, running off home, and arguing with Edward, arguing with Jacob, arguing with Alice, arguing with Charlie, arguing with herself... I'm simplifying of course, but it was really a bit long. Despite all this repetitiveness there was growth. This book was mostly about wrapping up old plot-lines and Bella working through her complicated emotions around being changed into a vampire and giving up her human life. Spoilers from this point on. Bella, in this book, has discovered she's not ready to be a vampire yet. Amongst being targeted by unknown vampire threats and her complicated relationship with Jacob, she feels "unease" at her impending deadline, only a few weeks away, after graduation. Edward, bless him, is really trying to convince her to go to college even for a year to give her time to make up her mind fully, but she's having none of it, while also having very real terror at the realisation that she will be leaving everything and everyone behind after graduation, only a week away at this point, to become someone bloodthirsty and wild. Emmett and Jasper have been taking bets on her body count, the news of crazed newborn vampires on a killing spree in Seattle has reached her ears, and she is Panicked. Adding to this, Edward wants her to marry him before he will personally change her, and later add the condition that he will only sleep with her as a human if they are married first. So she's not ready for marriage, not quite ready for vampirism, and her best friend Jacob is being mean about it all. It takes her nearly 400 pages to work through these feelings, and I greatly appreciated her arc in this book. It's very realistic to have these emotions right before massive life changes like marriage or eternal life as a creature of the night. When she is finally ready, she's ready for everything. Another aspect of Bella's story is her new knowledge of her selfish actions regarding Edward and Jacob and even Charlie. She feels very guilty about keeping Jacob around when she's chosen Edward, for both of their sakes, and also for threatening to move out every time Charlie is unnecessarily antagonistic towards Edward. It's a big step up from the last book, where she was constantly behaving badly, though she never acknowledges that Jessica is against her because of her own actions putting them both in extreme danger. Some Vampire things, including Edward, because he didn't really stand out much. -On Edward: He was pretty much obsessed with the idea of being a soldier when he was human. He said he was "too eager to be a soldier" for love. Edward is once more coded as Demisexual, obviously unintentionally, but I'm sticking by this one. He "wasn't the least bit interested" in Rosalie, when everyone else was, and in Rosalie's words, someone who has known him for 70-ish years: "he never wanted anyone" and "never showed the slightest preference" when meeting the beautiful Denali sisters. I will die on this hill. Edward tells Bella he actually wants her to be a vampire "more than anything" but feels that he's being selfish and so denies that wish, hence his being so against it. - Bella feels relief when Edward touches her, "as if [she'd] been in pain and that pain had suddenly ceased." This is either a Bella thing or a vampire thing, and one is more interesting than the other. - Jasper feels gratitude towards the Volturi for their part in keeping the Southern Vampire Wars in check. Bella doesn't understand how he could see them as the good guys, but there's definitely a middle ground to be seen. - Victoria has a babyish voice, "the kind of voice that went with blonde curls and pink bubble gum" and I still can't compute this information. - On Rosalie: She, like Bella, knew the Cullens as a human. She said she "never liked Dr. Cullen or his wife and her brother" because they were all more beautiful than her. She isn't actually that vain in current day, as after what happened to her she "began to blame the beauty for what happened" and wished she looked normal and not beautiful. As far as victim blaming, this isn't really the best point of view, but she goes on to describe how she murdered her attackers. It's still a harmful mentality to be sharing with a teen audience though. After explaining her history and her full reasoning for her dislike of Bella in the beginning and the reason for not wanting her to become a vampire, she apologises for her behaviour and they share a smile. Bella knows they aren't friends yet but they are on their way to not being against each other. It's a good moment of development that I missed in all my previous times reading. Onto the main differences to the films. - The terms of Bella's grounding are different. She must go home straight after school and work, but Edward is allowed over for a certain amount of time in the evenings. - After the Florida trip, Jacob calls Bella's house to check in on her and see if she would be at school the next day. Bella assumes it's to check she's still human. Jacob was checking to see if Edward would be there to talk to him about the treaty in a public area. Bella never gets on his motorbike. She goes to class and has a bizarre conversation with Edward. Her actual first trip to La Push happens a different day, as a split second decision after losing a shift at work, and she drives herself down quickly to avoid being caught by Alice. - The motorbike scene takes place on another day, with Alice as the vampire instead of Edward. Alice has kidnapped Bella to prevent her going to see Jacob when they made plans. At school he turns up and she bolts with him, then later has a fight with him and rides herself on her own motorbike back to Alice. She does take the bike back, after she makes up with Jacob, Edward buys his own motorbike and Bella realises that's weird, and Edward gives her a helmet and jacket so she can ride back on her own with him following for protection to the treaty line. - Jasper tells Bella his story at the Cullen house, in front of everyone, and explains the history of the Southern Vampire Wars in detail. - After getting back from the fight, Bella gets the story from Charlie's point of view. He heard howling, Billy was acting weird all day long, like he knew Jacob would get hurt, and when he was at Billy's he heard a wolf yowling in pain right outside, only for that to stop when Jacob starts swearing up a storm as he is carried inside. Charlie remains oblivious. There were several instances of creepy/gross behaviour, offensive language, uncomfortable situations, and straight up disgusting behaviour that I noticed. I should just call this Red Flags at this point. Let me count the ways, in chronological order. 1. Edward displays some creepy and controlling behaviour when Bella decides to go see Jacob and gets to her truck only to find Edward there and the truck missing a vital part. He refuses to allow her to go to La Push. Throw the whole man out. 2. One of Bella's school friends calls Jacob "the big Indian". 3. "You're kidnapping me, aren't you?"Edward bribes Alice into kidnapping Bella and guilting her into going along with her plans. 4. The bonfire scene. Stephenie Meyer made up those legends entirely, which begs the question: why not make up a whole new group of people to be werewolves instead of bastardising the belief system of a real group of people? 5. Jacob assaults Bella. He kisses her against her will and acts like he hasn't done wrong even after she punches him and makes it clear he's done something terrible. Trash. 6. In response to this information Charlie, a police officer and Bella's father congratulates Jacob and takes his side. He praises him for assaulting his daughter. ACAB. That's all I can say. 7. If the previous incident isn't enough, Jacob later threatens suicide to make Bella kiss him. For clarity: he threatens to kill himself to manipulate Bella into kissing him, then when he doesn't like the kiss he does it again to get a more enjoyable one. Kill it with fire, you disgusting future r*pist. I hate him here. Considering at the beginning he was defending Bella's right to choose and to know everything that happens that could endanger her, these vile actions are a huge departure from his character, and I don't know how we are supposed to believe the idea that he can go back to being the good, friendly Jacob who would never ever hurt Bella. None of that should have happened, and it was pure laziness that there wasn't a more believable reason to make them kiss instead of an assault and emotional abuse. It makes me so angry because when I hated Edward in New Moon his actions were actually in-character for him and made sense, but these efforts to make us hate Jacob and then forgive him are so out of character that its clear how Stephenie Meyer wanted the story to go, and she did a bad job of it. To end on a less angry note, let me slip in these little tidbits. Sam feels "betrayed" that Bella let the Cullens back into her life after they hurt her, and that information makes me want to know even more what went down at La Push in New Moon. Who was she close too? How close? Did Sam become friends with her or does he really know her through Jacob's memories? Also, Edward's been dropping hints about the Pack not being normal werewolves, so there's a bit of foreshadowing for Breaking Dawn.

[gaarfielf]

k im gonna throw in my hot take on part 5 now i think the time has come where i’ve watched enough of the damn series i can make a coherent essay on whats what on what (putting it under a read more bc this shit is gonna be long and i dont want my followers to suffer too much)

I’ll do this character by character starting with the new ones

Ami: I’m having a hard time deciphering whether she’s being underutilized or over utilized because number 1) her character isn’t interesting enough to have her keep coming around, especially when her only connection to the group is Lupin. She hasn’t had any interaction with Goemon or Jigen that i know of and she hates Fujiko for ??? reasons. That being said, I would’ve preferred if she was fleshed out more because 2) literally having her be the distant girl that is quiet and doesn’t understand social norms is..... really boring. It’s almost as boring as having a female character whose only there as a set of boobs... (coughs). She isn’t interesting because they didn’t make her interesting, yeah? It’s hard to hate a character based on the fact alone they were clearly written by a man but I mean it very literally when I say she could’ve been something great. Having her confess her love to Lupin was straight up disgusting and I really expected more from tms in that vein. Putting romance where romance doesn’t need to be is bad enough let alone when you jack knife it in between a child and an adult. And for those of you saying ‘Oh hhhh she’s like nineteen’....look into your heart. Even if she is 1) she sure as hell doesn’t look it and 2) Lupin is like 40-50. In the wise words of me, children loving adults was a myth made up by pedophiles in support of the devil. Npot to mention pitting her against Fujiko because they both like Lupin?? I ain’t even gotta explain why that’s a pathetic excuse at writing. But I will. Fujiko is a grown ass woman so why the fuck would she care and Ami is a child who shouldn’t be in love with him anyway. She has truly been nothing in the series except a tool and even at that not a likable one.

Yata: Do I even have to say that I can’t write anything about a man who hasn’t had more than 4 minutes of screen time in the last 24 episodes? He was hyped up before the series started and he’s done nothing but be Zenigata’s personality in the place of Zenigata y’know. Actually speaking and having one for himself BUT WE’LL GET TO THAT LATER. He’s done nothing but yell and cry over literally nothing? Like he fights Zeni’s fights because for some reason Zenigata got super lazy this season (again, we’ll get into that later) and he’s just a pointless character.

Albert: Gay rep for life haha just kidding he was bad at that too. I think they literally introduced him as faux-gay rep because they know the fans wanted more sensitive interactions from their already existing male cast members and they were like ‘well that’s gay so we’ll give them this guy’. And speaking on behalf of myself - ‘I don’t want these’. So Albert shows up, supposedly having a HUGE connection to Lupin’s past and then............we never see him again. And they literally tell us nothing about him except he’s gay and works in the government. Apparently when we say ‘we want gay rep’ they hear ‘very minor gay character??’ and didn’t hear us say ‘no’ back. And every time I hear anyone say 1) ‘well, his connection to Lupin is supposed to be a mystery!’ I can feel hives growing on my skin because i’m allergic to bullshit like if they weren’t gonna tell us the connection, and whatever the connection is didn’t reveal anything new about the character outside of ‘Lupin knew somebody that wasn’t Jigen when he was younger’ then why?? mention it?? why make an entire arc dedicated to not telling us something if the end result was ‘it doesn’t matter who he is’? 2) ‘well they’re obviously cousins’ except they obviously aren’t. if they obviously were, they’d say that they were cousins. like if y’all are digging up bits of the manga from 40 years ago to say ‘there was a character who had the same last name’ but are also out here saying ‘Jigen doesnt have a sister bc they said that over 40 yers ago and haven’t mentioned it since’ then I ain’t got nothing to say to y’all, you’re just dodgy and ain’t worth the stress of talking to. 3) ‘they’re maybe gay’ well the cool thing about gay rep is that we don’t give honourary mentions out for series that were too cowardly to actually come right out and say it. So in conclusion, Albert was written by cowards who couldn’t decide what to do with him.

Enzo: Boring. That’s literally all I have to say. Trying to give him depth by making Ami his daughter was predictable and not at all interesting. To be honest I completely forgot she was looking for her dad anyway because she didn’t seem to care that much about finding him either (or seem to care about anythign really). He’s a shitty villain and every time he speaks I got my finger on the right-key because I don’t care what he has to say and so far I haven’t missed anything good so yeah. Just disappointing.

I think that’s it??? For new characters?? So I’ll move onto the main cast

Jigen: I 👏 WANT 👏 JIGEN 👏 TO 👏 DO 👏 SOMETHING like good fucking God the man hasn’t done anything this whole series up until 24 where he got  5 minute scene dedicated to him killin’ cops (direct action) but like?? As a character he hasn’t progressed he has BARELY spoken and we’ve learned one new thing about him the whole series in the episode where he meets the daughter of a woman he used to work with. And that one thing that we learned was: he used to work with the mother of this girl. That’s it. Episode 24 he got a little bit of dialog with Lupin that I guess was supposed to be like character development but it was so weird because it was kind of directed at the audience?? So it’s like is he talking to me or to Jigen because if I was Jigen I would not have one goddamn clue what he was talking about. Also, he’s so depressing this season?? Right up until now we’ve seen very little personality from him aside from Angry and Complains a Lot. He smiles sometimes sure but like he doesn’t exactly have a lot to smile about this season considering he’s not really in the limelight anymore and is only brought back to foreshadow how much he hates technology and wants to retire. Personally, Jigen is one of my favourite characters and the fact he hasn’t achieved much this series is a big let-down

Goemon: I can’t even imagine how let down Goemon fans feel because again, up until Episode 23 he did nothing. He had an episode where he fell in love?? With a girl?? Disguised as a woman?? For some reason?? It was in one of the throwbacks and I’ll admit that maybe the episode made sense and I probably missed something but to me I had no clue what was going on. ANYWAY like his big scene in the spotlight is 3 episodes before the end of the series (its not like he’s a main character or anything) and he cuts Lupin. Because he thinks that he isn’t really his friend. That’s it that’s the only reason he almost murders his friend. Just kidding the other reason was that it was a half ass attempt at shock value to make sure the audience was still paying attention. They can’t seem to decide this season whether they want Goemon to be edgy or stupid but I think we’ve gotten a greta big helping of both so thanks tms /sarcasm/. They’ve really just dragged his character through the mud this season because he used to be stoic, mysterious, traditionalist but lowkey clumsy guy and then now he’s. I don’t even know how to describe it he’s just become so cutesy and edgy at the same time so we get him cutting Lupin in half right in front of UwU i eat my fish skin first ! I’m quirky ! like what am I supposed to feel about this grown man? He’s really too back-and-forth for me this season

Fujiko: I’M GONNA GET HEATED ABOUT THIS ONE SO BUCKLE UP I’ve never seen Fujiko written this poorly since TWCFM (yes i’m outting that as a bad series too so don’t @ me about that lil tidbit). She’s there as a piece of eyecandy bUT SHE IS SO POORLY DRAWN IT MAKES ME WONDER IF ANYBODY AT TMS HAS EVER SEEN A WOMAN IN THEIR LIFE TIME. Seriously her proportions are so off and outwardly repulsive looking it makes it hard not to skip anything she says in the series on account of how half-ass her character looks. Not limiting herself to being visually repulsive, she also has a half-ass personality. Suddenly Fujiko isn’t the come-and-go as she pleases, mysterious woman that gives Lupin intel on very high security operations she’s just. There. At some point in the series she said ‘a woman’s body is just a tool to get something she needs’ and I wanted to puke this is NOT Fujiko’s character at all and I’m disgusted that they’re brushing her off as a pair of walking talking boobs. Also her absolute lack of empathy is just mind numbing because they’re somehow trying to convince the audience that Lupin broke her heart due to wedding related reasons that still haunt her but? Seeing him cut almost in half does nothing for her? And then she deadpan ‘This is just how it is’ like this is just putting her in such an evil light that I hate because I love Fujiko! In every other season she’s fighty and sarcastic and witty AND NOT JUST THERE FOR EYE CANDY. And going back to the wedding thing, why is this being made into such a big deal? There’s literal episodes in other seasons called ‘Fujiko Doesn’t Look Right in a Wedding Dress’ ‘Fujiko Doesn’t Want to Be Married’ ‘A Ring Is Like a Trap’ like she 👏 don’t 👏 want 👏 to 👏 be 👏 married 👏. And the preview for the next ep shows her in a wedding dress so I’m ultimately preparing myself for the big season finale being them getting married.

hurray.

Final thought on Fujiko being, the episode where she picks up Lupin to save him from succumbing to his crossbow wound (easily the funniest thing thats happened all season) I mean. Yeah it’s kinda cool. I don’t really have any strong feelings about that like I’m not about to praise them for something like that when it was immediately followed by her and Ami slap fighting over him again.

Lupin: In my days of watching Lupin movies/specials my slogan was ‘if the ratio of screen time in the movie between characters is 10:0 in Lupin’s favour then it ain’t a good movie’ and it’s ringing true to this season where it’s all about Lupin. I understand obviously it’s a series called Lupin III like I’m not stupid but the amount of ass kissing to his character is something else like they’re putting him on this huge pedestal like he’s a do-no-wrong kind of guy to the point where he’s boring because he’s done nothing wrong. Ever. He doesn’t argue with anybody he doesn’t have any strong emotions really (outside of that episode where Zenigata loses his memory we see him outwardly angry for a minute). It just makes him such a dry character when they try to mold him into being absolutely flawless and admirable. Also the amount of faking his own death and ‘oh no is he gonna die’ moments are just not entertaining. Like I said earlier when he got shot with the crossbow that was the hardest I’ve laughed in a long long time. It played like an SNL skit (you know what one). And again we aren’t learning anything new. Whose Albert to him!? We never got to know, What’s his relationship to Fujiko!? We’re probably gonna find out they’re getting married last episode after all the touching moments they had together this season like.... like uh.... when they uh... oh right they’ve barely spoken to each other all season. And when they did they were arguing. Love is in the air huh?

Zenigata: AI’ll try to keep this brief but Yata’s taken over his character this season. He’s barely spoken, he has like, NO energy or determination. After the episode where Lupin faked his death (the first time, not the proceeding 90 times) Zenigata just stopped appearing and stopped doing anything productive. If anything his character became an excuse for an info dump. Like oh we see a war torn area whats going on? Zenigata is conveniently nearby to say ‘these people are at war!’ and then outside character will tell a 18 paragraph history on him of whose at war and their history and then Zenigata says ‘okay’ and doesn’t appear again for the next 2 episodes.

Now for the closing thoughts I guess

i don’t know why they’re looking at Lupin having plot as separate from Lupin being episodic. Like they’ve separated him from adventure so he’s just doing the same things over and over again. Not to mention like I said earlier, the fans wanted to see more sensitive interactions between the already existing characters, and if anything, they’re farther apart and just really confusing and contradictory. It’s hard to get through an episode when every week its another ‘great time for another plot arc they’re never gonna finish’. When I watched episodes of Part 1 and 2 and 4 (not so much 3 because i can’t find anywhere to watch it lol) I’m pretty attentive all the way through because the series drops tidbits of information about the characters and they make the episode enjoyable to watch. This season is so dreary and dry I can’t find anything to enjoy about it because it’s just one disappointment after another. I’m trying to to sound bitchy as I type all this out but I mean I’m speaking as a fan who is just really disappointed. I know I’ve said ‘disappointed’ a lot in this whole thing but there isn’t another word to describe it because that’s really the way that I feel about part 5. Seeing my favourite characters on screen is supposed to make me feel happy and excited to see where they’re gonna go and what they’re gonna do not make me think “I hope they don’t ruin this character for me’ in every. single. episode. This season has been underwhelming, unenjoyable, inconsistent and just really exhausting to me overall.

i gotta go eat now so peace out and if you read to the end of all this then hopefully i’m not the only one in this boat but if you don’t agree with me then i guess thats just how it is yeah?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the callbacks were cool at first but now I just find they’re baiting me into thinking i’ll enjoy the episode because i’ll find something I liked from one of the better seasons in it. They’re just really overused at this point because these callbacks aren’t being used for anything. like ‘lupin is making his plan at the cagliostro castle!’ like. why. ‘detective melon is also angry at lupin!’ but if she isn’t like teaming up with zenigata or actually doing anything to find him why should i care. 

[kitten1618x]

GoT Afterthoughts 7x03 The Queen's Justice (Jonsa Edition) SPOILERS

I’m sorry for the delay, but ffs this is LONG! Well ...now we know that this week's episode title was def. referring to Cersei, let's get to it. 

We begin this week with foreboding music -Jon and Davos riding the crashing waves onto the shores of Dragonstone -which I still highly prefer the exterior to the interior -though, I suppose it fits the "mood". Little bit of banter between the boys, and after a friendly introduction and a smiling face, Missandei asks for their weapons. A skeptical and non-to-pleased looking Jon obeys, then turns to watch warily while the Dothraki take their rowboat as well. Okay Gendry, you can row up at any time now ...we may need you as the getaway boat. 

So they proceed up the long winding staircase (which has more steps than Dany does titles) and not even a full 3 minutes into the episode, Sansa is already brought up in conversation. I'm dead serious - 02:30 minute mark on the dot. I actually only know this, because at this particular moment, I paused the DVR to grab a snack -but I like how in what is supposed to be such a J/D-centric episode (er-meh-gerd they're finally meeting!!!), Sansa takes precedence. Good call D&D ...I see what you did there. 

Now about that conversation -is it odd that Tyrion would bring up Sansa in passing conversation with Jon? No, not at all -she is a connection that they both share, but ....

T: Sansa, I hear she's alive and well? 

J: She is. 

T: Does she miss me terribly? (clearly he's attempting a bit of a joke here). 

J: *silence as he stares down at Tyrion like he damn well better explain himself*

T: *looks over his shoulder, to see that Jon is not amused, quickly explains* A sham marriage, never consummated. 

J: I didn't ask. 

T: Well it was, it wasn't. Anyway, she's much smarter than she lets on.

J: She's starting to let on. 

T: Good. 

So, what exactly was the point of this conversation? If Tyrion just wanted to know if Sansa was well, and the narrative wanted to establish how clever Sansa is, they could have done that without all that "missing me and marriage sham and unconsummated" banter in between. We as an audience already know all of these things, so how does that little nugget of information help in furthering the narrative? To put it quite simply -it doesn't. Again ..I see you D&D, I see exactly what you did there. 

A bit more banter between the boys -Tyrion's ironic statement about Starks not faring well in the South, as to which Jon replies that he's not a Stark (shut up baby, yes you fucking are!) and BOOM! Cue: Drogon swooping down over the crowd, and Jon and Davos hitting the deck like a bunch of dropped wet rocks. You will NEVER convince me that was coincidence. Dany is in full control of her Dragons now, and that was a total (cheap) intimidation tactic. 

PS: Jon is wearing leggings! Show me tha booty! 

Cut to Varys and Melisandre perched high above on a cliff and watching the welcoming committee march up the guests. Varys prods her on why she won't greet them considering she spoke so highly of Jon Snow. She replies with how she's "brought fire and ice together and she's done her part" -I believe this is a deliberate misdirection from the writers. We already know that Jon is fire and ice on his own -the characters do not, and you know the dark ship is going wild over this line right now, but don't any of you pay it any mind. It's like a magicians trick -slight of hand ..look over there, while we do this over here. 

Varys still has a healthy skepticism of this religion and these priestesses -and I'm still 1100000% with him. Melisandre is going back to Volantis (spelled right??) it seems -but will return to die -just like Varys. Ohhhh prophetic. And damn but these red witches get under his skin! Why???? I must know!

Poor Jonny-boy walking into the throne room looks nervous AS HELL, with the Mad Kings daughter perched on that wiggy-ass throne, and half of Dany's face is bathed in shadows, and she's once again cloaked in all black -shadows, darkness = symbolism at its finest folks. Hiding ones face half in shadow is a popular trope to emphasize that someone has a "sinister side" , and wearing all black is also a trope - "evil wears black." 

Now, for arguments sake (and because I like to play devils advocate -the Nights Watch also wear all black, and Jon did too -however, Dany's wardrobe went from bright white (innocence and purity) to black upon coming to Westeros.  

So as Missandei rambles off all 101 of Dany's titles (like I swear they do this purposely to annoy us at this point), Davos shoots back with "This is Jon Snow and he's King of the North". (See this juxtaposition they just shoved RIGHT IN OUR FACES???). LMAO -by the way, I just fucking adore Davos! He is a damn precious dewdrop, and I will fight you if you say otherwise! 

D: You are here to bend the knee?

J: I am not. 

Who else screeched with glee here? Huh? Huh? 

Bend the knee. Bend the knee. BEND THE KNEE. 

I'm not going to rehash this entire exchange, but a few important things that stuck out to me: 

Jon's primary focus is "us", "we" -he's concerned about saving people.   

Dany's primary focus is "Me, me, me!!"  

 It is interesting how she asked that the father's sins not be passed onto the daughter -reminiscent of Jon's own words regarding the Karstark and Umber children. I wonder if this is a sort of foreshadowing that by not being more wary of Dany's Targ temper, it just may bite him in the ass later.   

 Also Dany is a hypocrite. "Don't blame me for my ancestors -blah blah blah, but bend the knee because of my ancestors." Sigh.   

I'm insanely curious why Jon didn't want Davos to tell them he'd been resurrected -or why Melisandre left that little tidbit out too??? 

 Jon is now essentially Dany's prisoner.  

Dany's narcissism is growing by the day. I can't believe people don't understand what GRRM (D&D) are deliberately doing with her character! This is an actual quote: "Do you know what kept me standing all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any god, not in myths, and legends. In myself. Daenerys Targaryen. The world hadn’t seen a dragon in centuries, until my children were born. The Dothraki hadn’t crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms. And I will."  

Varys delivers the news that Dany's  fleet is gone, and then Theon is fished from the sea by his people. And let me slip in here that if you're one of the people bashing Theon for jumping overboard because he so clearly suffers from PTSD -you're a shit, and you need to stop. That's not something that just suddenly disappears ...he will struggle with that for whatever is left of his life. He's gonna rescue Yara ...I just know it. 

Now we're in Kings Landing and Euron is parading Yara and the Sand Snakes through the city. Like, I'm so torn, because I hate this dude, but I also kinda love him? His teasing of Jamie is PRICELESS, if not highly inappropriate. It's also pretty clear to me that Cersei has no intent on marrying him. In typical Cersei fashion, she'll keep him at arms length while she uses him, and then dispose of him when he wears out his usefulness -clever girl that she is. 

And now we're in the dungeon where the Sand Snakes are chained -after a bit of tormenting them, she takes Tyene the same way they took her daughter -with a kiss of death. As a mother, I truly feel for Cersei here as she talks about Mrycella -for both of these mothers actually. Say what you will about Cersei, but Lena is a fucking GODDESS! She owns this role so well. Like, I can't stand Cersei, and yet, I literally cheer for her sometimes. One thing is for certain -people better stop underestimating her ruthlessness. And my God, the Sand Snakes -magnificent acting with no dialogue!

After a romantic romp with her dear brother (and damn, Jamie has a sweet ass), she boldly allows the servant to see them together -she's queen now, and apparently has no more fucks to give. It's time for the Lannister's to pay their debts, and she's off to meet with a rep. of the Iron Bank. Using the sharp negotiation skills she inherited from Tywin, and the same "foreign invader/mad Kings daughter" approach that she used to sway the Lords, it appears she gets what she wants and the Iron Bank will extend her the credit she needs - "gold wins wars." 

We jump back to Dragonstone, where our brooding prisoner/hero is staring forlornly at the sea. He's a Northern fool who didn't listen (to Sansa). Tyrion tries to appeal to Jon's good side, and talks up Dany a bit, while simultaneously trying to help him. He's looking to strike an alliance -"use each other to further your own needs approach", and after a somewhat comical conversation with Dany (thank God because we need a bit of levity surrounding her scenes) -he urges her to let Jon mine the dragon glass. I think Tyrion does truly believe Jon is telling the truth. The knife in the heart comment comes up again -and again, I wonder why Jon didn't want them to know about his resurrection -but clearly, it's important because it was brought up again. 

Now Jon approaches Dany who's gazing off towards the sea and watching her Dragons soaring in the distance. Sounds kinda romantic, right? Well not really, as during most of this conversation they stood facing opposite directions, barely making eye contact -save for a few moments. Shipping goggles are fully affixed here, but compare this to the way Jon and Sansa are always staring into each other's eyes (usually in softly lit rooms). Just sayin'. 

Jon comments on Dany's Dragons, and she tells them that she named them for her brothers -Viserys and Rhaegar. This made me smile. And what I find so amusing about this, is just a few nights ago, I had a Nonny send me an ask referring to the general audience possibly forgetting that Rhaegar (Jon's daddy dearest) was Dany's brother --well, there you have it, Nonny, the narrative just delivered your reminder. Heh heh heh. ;)   I don't think that Dany believes Jon about the WW/NK yet (and really, we can't fault her) but he is getting his dragon glass, and in the meantime, it keeps Jon hanging around -more time to woo him to their side. 

And we head North to Winterfell (finally) to see that the Sass QitN is pretty freaking good at this ruling stuff. Like really, did we ever have any doubts? She's preparing for the enemy coming from both sides, because she's clever as hell (and I'm so proud of her!!!). Can't-take-a-hint Lord Creepyfinger is at it again -whispering in her ear with his creepy-creep-ness, and our girl once again, deliciously puts him in his place. Look, this constant talk of Cersei with Sansa, and the fact that she's lived and learned from her -plus this emphasis on how well she's taken up the helm at "ruling" and caring for her people, all while Tyrion, Jon and LF are all saying how smart she is ...I'm really starting to get the feeling that Sansa is THAT queen. Ya know -the one from Cersei's prophecy ...  

"You'll be queen, for a time. Then comes another, younger, more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold dear." 

I usually try not to get tin foilish in my recaps, but this is the Jonsa edition after all, so bear with me. Sansa has literally learned from the master of ruthlessness, and I truly believe all this emphasis on that this season, is setting up the fact that Sansa will be the only one clever enough to see through Cersei's scheming, won't underestimate her, and in fact, be the one to bring her down. Sansa, if not indirectly, could be linked to all of Cersei's children's deaths (all she holds dear): 

She was betrothed to Joffrey, who after he cruelly tortured her for a time, discarded her for Margaery. Being the clever old bird that she was, Olenna got Sansa to open up about Joffrey's cruelty, which ultimately led to his death.  

Thrusting Sansa into a marriage with Tyrion who then were both accused by Cersei of murdering Joffrey. Sansa escapes due to LF's scheming, leading to Tyrion's trial by combat with Oberyn as his champion. When he is killed by the Mountain, Ellaria exacts revenge on the Lannisters by killing Mrycella.   

Due to Joffrey's death, Tommon becomes king, and takes his brothers widow for a wife -the same family responsible for Joffrey's death -who only murdered him because Sansa confirmed his cruelness. Tommon falls hopelessly in love with Margaery, and upon her death, commits suicide.   

It's also important to note, that Cersei is technically the one to blame for the deaths of all of her children, although she will never see it that way. While I was studying up on this prophecy, I also stumbled onto this from one of the book wiki sites:

When will I marry the prince?

Cersei is talking about Prince Rhaegar, whom Tywin Lannister intended to offer her to for marriage. Maggy tells Cersei that she will never marry the prince, but will marry the king. This foreshadows King Aerys refusing Tywin’s offer, Robert’s Rebellion, and Cersei eventually marrying Robert Baratheon after he is crowned king.

I just find highly coincidental that Cersei was almost wed to a Targaryen prince (and Jon Snow's father, to boot), and if we're all correct in our assumptions that Jonsa is in fact endgame (it is, by the way) then Sansa will take that from her, too. Which also strangely ties Sansa to -going from in the beginning of the story, wanting the prince who was actually a bastard, to getting the bastard who is actually a prince. Just sayin' ....

Okay, back to the show. 

Bran has arrived at Winterfell! I repeat BRAN HAS ARRIVED AT WINTERFELL!! And we are treated to yet another beautiful Stark reunion -minus "the nuzzle" -I repeat MINUS THE NUZZLE!! 

They are catching up in the Godswood, and the first thing out of Sansa's mouth (when she's in what she perceives is a safe space, and she's allowed to be vulnerable) is "I wish Jon were here". Ship them or not, there's a reason that they both mentioned each other in this episode -if only to remind us (the general audience) that they are, indeed, on each other's minds. 

Bran is quite emotionless, and I guess I get it. He needs to disconnect and emerge himself completely in this whole 3-eyed Raven deal, because the NK is coming, and he doesn't have much time to hone his powers. In light of their reunion, the writers chose to have him bring up the horrors Sansa suffered at the hands of Ramsey Bolton -to prove his power. I've seen some speculate that this was in fact Bran seeing a future Sansa wedding, and this very well may be, as he admitted himself that it all comes to him in bits. Part of me REALLY wants to believe that, but I think this had more to do with choosing something that would shake Sansa enough to know that what he says is true (cuz come on, he does seem a bit eccentric and cray, peeps). Or maybe it's both? Take it for what you will. 

Jorah has been successfully cured of his greyscale, and he is off to find his Dragon queen -and just ffs, I ship them so hard !!! They (Jorah/Sam) will meet again -although, I hope it's not on different sides of the battlefield. *cough* Targbowl. 

Sam doesn't get rewarded, but you can def. see that the Archmaester IS proud of him. Oh my heart! 

And we're back to Dany's war room. Two allies are down, her armada is gone. She wants to take her Dragons and go burn Euron's fleet -oh, I'm so shocked! But, her wise council talks her out of it, and Tyrion narrates the scene of Casterly rock being taken, while quoting his bro, Bron (like -I can't wait for these two to reunite). The siege is successful .....or is it? Well, NO -because Cersei is a BOSS! 

Euron has effectively taken out the rest of Dany's ships, and trapped GW and the remaining Unsullied at Casterly Rock (which by the way, is gorgeous, and it's about time we see it) -with limited supplies, and no one to come to their aid, they will likely die. 

So where is the rest of the Lannister army? Capturing High Garden, of course (and now Cersei will have their riches, as well). The battle scenes are skipped, and we see Jamie seek out Lady Olenna, who admits to being outsmarted. She warns Jamie that Cersei will be the death of him, and calls Joffrey a cunt (lmao, I love her), before swigging down the poison Jamie offers her. And right before the credits roll, she SAVAGELY admits to Jamie that she was behind Joffrey's murder, and she wants Cersei to know that. Daaaaaammmmmnnn!

And that concludes my Afterthoughts  ...see you next week. 

Oh, and Jonsa is endgame -spread the word. 

[dinodrifterdarsh]

Star Versus the Forces of Evil: A Timeline and Analysis of Star’s (and some of Marco’s) Feelings, Part 1

With the S3 movie a little over a month away, I figured I might as well post this. Star Versus the Forces of Evil does a good job of building up the relationship (platonic and non-requited romantic) between Star and Marco, and it also shows how Star and Marco can suck at dealing with (romantic) emotions. They suppress and lie about them, or are just plain old clueless about them, which is pretty standard for 14 year old kids (speaking from personal experience here too). So this makes for some darn good writing material. Originally I posted the bare-bones framework of this on /co/ and it was received well, so I beefed it up proper and decided to share it with others. Here, I’ll try and give a timeline for at least some of the big hints or events that happen which show the kind of romantic feelings that exist-or don’t exist (YET)-between the two.

Season 1: There’s a decent amount to unpack here. Already, great posts have detailed how Star may have started falling for Marco in Sleep Spells, etc. I’m lazy, so I’m gonna focus on the most prominent episode in S1 that deals with romance. To nobody’s surprise, that’s Blood Moon Ball. In Season 1, I think that Marco develops some small unconscious degree of feelings for Star. She's attractive, the coolest girl he knows, etc. But they're not conscious and he still has the pedestal for Jackie, so Marco isn’t exactly making moves on Star. The events of Blood Moon Ball hint that Marco has some degree of attraction to Star, which Marco himself doesn’t actually realize until the episode itself. Marco’s initially defensive of Star around Tom because he genuinely doesn’t trust the guy, and when Marco first proposes going with Star to the Blood Moon Ball, there’s no hint of romantic intent (in the voice acting or music), just genuine platonic concern. But that changes when Star reveals her outfit to Marco.

Dude’s verbal and physical reaction to Star’s dress are pretty clearly not just a “AH YES, MY TOTALLY PLATONIC FRIEND I HAVE NO FEELINGS FOR LOOKS SO GOOD I WAS JUST AWESTRUCK, PLATONICALLY” and the background music certainly lends to that feeling. After this, Marco attempts to ride down with Star (sounding a little more than just a concerned friend), but gets kicked out. When Marco hears the voice of the Old Sea Captain say “The Moon of Lovers,” that gets Marco to get up and eventually ring the bell for transport himself. The fact that the Sea Captain said “The Moon of Lovers” is relevant simply because from a writing perspective, the juxtaposition of that statement and Marco going after Star hints at Marco having some degree of feelings (probably not too consciously) for Star.

Let’s skip to the end of the episode for a bit. Marco thinks he’s done Star a favor by rescuing her from Tom, and that he was in the right to help her, but Star’s reaction clearly wasn’t expected (side note: the really healthy and awesome dynamic between the two in this scene, with the understanding and actual apologizing, is fantastic). Star ends up saying the (in)famous words, “I don’t need a hero, I need a friend.” I think it’s pretty heavily hinted (through later actions) that Marco and Star see this statement in two different ways. Marco, who at this point likely has some unconscious degree of attraction to Star, (mis)interprets Star’s words as “I’m only interested as you in a friend, not romantically.” Star’s words shut down that small flame-Marco may still find Star attractive but any attraction to her at this point would be well and truly unconscious and comparatively minor. We see this change reflected physically in Marco’s look, which changes between the above and below pictures.

Marco definitely looks a bit more downtrodden in the second picture, and I don’t think it’s solely because he feels like he didn’t believe in Star enough. This change in Marco’s feelings is also reflected in the fact that it is only after Blood Moon Ball that Marco seriously attempts to act on his long-standing crush on Jackie (I’m not counting “Marco looks/makes an awkward noise at Jackie” as a serious attempt because they’re really not). Yes, the events of Freeze Day also played a big role in it, but the positioning of that episode immediately after Blood Moon Ball is not coincidental.

Star on the other hand likely interpreted her words literally: she didn’t need (or more importantly, want) some person/dude to just save the day for her because they think she’s not capable of saving or handling herself. This is a recurring theme with Star (Banagic Incident, etc.). She didn’t necessarily mean “Marco I am only interested in you as a friend” but intent and perception are two different things, and neither Star nor Marco can really be blamed for their interpretations (because they’re non-malicious interpretations and I feel blame is a bit of a loaded word in this context).

But what Star says and what (part of her) feels are not necessarily the same thing. So let’s break down Star’s feelings towards Marco in Blood Moon Ball a little bit more. Specifically, her initial reaction to him when the dance starts. Now, the actual effect of the Blood Moon (or at least the light of it) is completely unknown, but I’m gonna assume it doesn’t actually mind control or influence the characters because (a) no evidence of that has been shown (the Blood Moon is also shining at the end of the episode yet Star and Marco’s interactions during that sequence are entirely in character and there’s no hint of manipulation by the blood moon) (b) it’d be more than a bit creepy if there wasn’t free will in all of this, and (c) her reaction is consistent with later ones.

Anyways, Star’s pretty darn entranced by Marco, and this is really obvious to the viewers, although perhaps maybe not to Marco because the dude can be an idiot when it comes to emotions. However, once Marco reveals himself to Star, she’s shocked and the overt attraction disappears, a shift that’s reflected in her eyes, which go from glassy back to normal. This is interesting to note, because it indicates that Star does find Marco attractive and/or romantic, when she doesn’t know it’s Marco (i.e. this scene conclusively establishes that Star can find Marco attractive in a non-platonic manner, period). This is likely because Star has consciously only thought of Marco as a friend, and any attraction to him prior to this scene she could pass off as “I think he’s cute, but I think a lot of things are cute!” which is a line that should sound familiar. Star’s reaction here is also semi-repeated later on in Running with Scissors, when Star goes goo-goo over Marco (although by that point the audience knows for sure that Star has a crush on Marco, and Star herself is starting to become aware of that).

Season 2 (Episodes 1 and 2): Star likely found Marco cute and funny but may have actually developed a small crush on him by the time of S2. My New Wand features Star’s diary, which contains an interesting tidbit. Since we don’t actually see much of the diary’s contents, there’s only so much we can infer, but that’s not to say there’s nothing to be gleaned. I think that in the “My thoughts on Marco” section, Star wrote something along the lines of “I think Marco is kinda cute,” probably post-Blood Moon Ball (which is when Star first really gets swept off her feet by Marco). I say that Star wrote something along those lines (i.e. something that would make a 3rd party go “huh Star has/had a small crush on Marco?”) because of her reaction to Marco finding that chapter. Specifically, Star dipping down. Previously, Star dipped down in Storm the Castle when Marco’s life was in danger. Later on, Star dips down during her attempt to rescue Glossaryck. Dipping down for Star (at the beginning of S2) is not something Star can do easily (or even voluntarily). The previous time she dipped down was during a situation of high emotional stress. Keeping that in mind, note how Star doesn’t dip down when Marco is reading the other parts of her diary. Yes, she’s frantic and yelling at Marco to put the book down, but she’s not sufficiently emotionally stressed (or worried or motivated) enough to dip down. But the second Marco finishes reading the title of “My Thoughts on Marco” Star involuntarily dips down again. This signifies that whatever Marco was about to read, Star REALLY did not want Marco to read (at that point in time). Given that Star has had 0 qualms about expressing how much she values Marco as a friend (verbally, through physical intimacy, and through saving his life), the implication is pretty heavy that Star’s writings had some degree (likely minor) of non-platonic thoughts/interests in Marco (mind you, I’m not saying Star wrote “STAR BUTTERFLY IS IN LOVE WITH HER BEST FRIEND AND HIS NAME IS MARCO DIAZ”). It’s also entirely possible, and in fact likely, that whatever non-platonic thoughts Star wrote about Marco were in the past tense (I’ll elaborate on this shortly).

Also, the above magic key that Star unlocks the secrets closet with is pretty telling. Yea, the heart is technically just the same heart that’s on Star’s cheek but I think the color (pink-ish) and the fact that it’s unlocking a door behind which Marco is reading Star’s diary that has her thoughts on Marco...I mean the symbolism is there.

In Mr. Candle Cares, when the guidance counselor asks Star if she has a secret crush on Marco, Star’s response is interesting: she says "He’s my roommate. We’re just friends.” Technically, that’s not “no” but I think it’s more of a hint that Star isn’t consciously aware of her feelings for Marco as opposed to “HAHA STAR IS LYING.” This ties back into the contents of Star’s diaries, and the Season 2 finale, Starcrushed. I’m gonna lay out a rough timeline of Star’s feelings towards Marco by this point in Season 2. Through the course of Season 1, Star started developing some very minor romantic feelings towards Marco, mostly consisting of “I think he’s cute/funny/nice/etc.” and these feelings became obvious to Star and us, the viewers, in Blood Moon Ball. She writes these...uh, observations, down in her diary. However, Star ignored those feelings for the most part because they were about Marco, her best friend, and no way could she ever have a crush on her best friend/roommate, that’s just crazy (hint, she can). Fast-forward to Starcrushed, when Star says she had a crush on Marco once and then says that she doesn’t anymore. I’ll go into more detail in Part 2, but basically, I think Star is referring to roughly this point in her life when she says that bit in Starcrushed: thus, it’s not technically a lie she’s telling everyone either.

Anyways, I’m tired and I think this a decent enough (or at least not god-awful) ending point for Part 1 of this timeline/analysis. Next time, Sleepover, Bon Bon the Birthday Clown, Just Friends, and Starcrushed!

[ugdigital]

[EXCLUSIVE] @JONCHAFFIN : THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS

If you’ve been following the last few weeks, you’ve seen the various features we’ve run here at UGD in support of The Haves and the Have Nots. This week, we catch up with Jon Chaffin, who plays one of the show’s most loved and hated characters, Warlock. Without going into heavy detail of his character, Jon Chaffin displays some of the best acting we’ve seen with his character, and it undoubtedly has taken the show to amazing heights. He’s got millions of fans tuning in each week to see what’s going to happen next on the show. The season is currently reaching it’s climax, and things are getting really heated right now. Jon sits down for a few moments to talk with us about the show, what’s to come, and also the many amazing things he has going on in his career outside of HAHN. 

  U.G. Digital Mag: First off Mr Chaffin, this is a tremendous honor to connect with you because you are one of the best I’ve seen do this. I imagine you hear it a lot, and I know the type of person you are so you don’t feed off it, but I still imagine you get it a lot. Even with what you are doing with The Haves and the Have Nots, it’s inspiring to so many. Not even fronting, I watch the show and am a die hard fan. I have said for so long that I wanted to connect, not just about the show, but also your journey. Many want to do this, and get into entertainment, acting, or more, and they get discouraged. With all you’re doing, you show people they can do it, do what they love, and make a living. They can prosper financially and professionally. I haven’t seen anybody else deliver what you do with HAHN. We regular push this man, in terms of following your passion. I walked away from career to build this publication that offers an alternative, and something that’s culture bending, and just not the norm. We love to show the positivity in people like yourself. Thank you for that. I know it’s a mouth full. 

 Jon Chaffin: Wow. I appreciate it and am really humbled by it. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: It’s cool, too, because again, people easily get discouraged, and I’ve been there. This initially made no money. I had to maintain family and all else for something I love. Looking at you and so many others, you see first hand that when you put your heart and passion in, it works out. 

 Jon Chaffin: Yes sir. I appreciate that so much. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: My goal has been to connect with everybody from the show. It’s funny because I reached out to Crystal Fox, who plays Hanna, and we did that. Then I reached out to Presilah Nunez, who plays Erica. That’s running now. You’re will run here on the site and in the issue. On a side note, you worked with Markice Moore in a films that we’ll discuss later in our conversation, and he’s doing the cover. It’s so cool to see what’s going on with HAHN, and how big it has become. Getting into the show, how did War come about for you?

 Jon Chaffin: It was an audition. My agent sent it to me. I did it the old-fashioned way. They liked it and brought me in for the callback. I had to go in to do it in Atlanta because I was in LA at the time. I’m still in LA. But I had to go to Atlanta for Tyler and the producers. I did my thing, and initially, I knew who this guy was. I grew up with people like him, and been around people like him. I was able to find the connection and bring it to life. Through the process, I was able to dive deeper into the psyche and personality. It was all done the old-fashioned way. I gave them my take and they liked it. As they say, the rest is history. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: Someone like myself, I have watched since day one. I DVR’d because I worked so much. Now I take an iPad to work with me to make sure I catch it. I binge watch at times just out of love for the show.  What’s cool is it unites people with families. I watch with my mother, my wife loves it, my son loves it and begs me to DVR it. It’s funny because we watched last night, and I work a night shift gig. We watched, and as it went off, he was saying he wished another episode was coming on. Did you expect this type of success with it, especially reaching all age groups like it does? People either love or hate War. 

    Jon Chaffin: Yea. I had no idea. Initially it was one episode. Candace had come to him because she had gotten all her belongings taken. It wasn’t written that I would have a long shelf life. When I did it, Tyler really liked it, and he said he would write more for the character. You just never know, which is why you have to focus on the work and not so much the outcome. I didn’t go in with the idea that I would love for it to be a regular character. I just did my things, and that opened up the opportunity for more. I was totally surprised by what this role had become because like I said, it wasn’t written for that. I had no idea it would go this far, or fans would gravitate to it the way they have. It’s been an awesome ride. They either love me, or hate me. They love to hate me, hate to love me. It’s what we hope for as actors, is that the audience gravitate to the character and the work. We want to move them in some fashion, and the fact that I did that means job well done. They love the character and it’s been a blessing. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: It’s cool because a lot of characters in many of Tyler’s shows are that way. Presilah Nunez said the same thing. She was only there for three episodes, and it grew. Crystal Fox was to be there long term obviously, but it’s great to see the smaller roles growing the way they do. I never imagined it would get this big, even though i saw big things. On Facebook, there’s a ton of groups, and I usually do some promotion there. People are like die hard fans. They have groups and everything with thousands of members. They LIVE chat each week, and they go in hard. I know Angela chats live sometimes. She actually did the cover of our first issue. Do you find time, even with how incredibly busy you are, to get on Facebook and chat?

 Jon Chaffin: Oh yea. I get on, and try to respond as often as I can. i try not to live my life on social media, though. We’ve become a society that’s glued to our phones. I post and reply, but not all day and everyday. Sometimes, I LIVE tweet if I can catch the show. I am active in responding, and try to thank the fans. Without them, the show would not be what it is. We need the fans to love what we do so we can continue. I’m grateful for social media because it gives us the opportunity to connect directly with the fans. The comments, and gifs, have me cracking up. It’s hilarious, but it goes to show, like you said, how invested people are in these shows and characters. I go back to say it was unexpected that it would become this beloved character. I’m grateful. I try to reach out and thank them, or retweet. I can’t reply to everybody, but I try to like comments and let them know I see it and appreciate it. 

  U.G. Digital Mag: Keeping it real man, I know you can’t give nothing away, but I’d be crazy not to ask for a tidbit of intel?

 Jon Chaffin: [Laughing] You just gotta watch. Let’s just say the journey comes to full circle. Hopefully, the audience will enjoy the next episode. it will definitely put some people on the edge of their seats. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: I say again that you guys reach all generations. I also work with someone who’s in their seventies, and she asked me last night about the show. It’s cool that you can bring people together this way. It’s amazing what we can do through entertainment. 

 Jon Chaffin: Yea man. It’s a blessing to affect people that way. That’s the beauty of what we do as artists, whether acting, writing, or doing poetry. Our job is to reflect the times in which we live. When we can reach and connect with people, that’s it. It’s good when people are affected in a positive way. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: So this is where I start to transition into some of your other work. I love how supportive the entire cast is of each other. No matter what it is, everyone supports. You did King Hedley II and you also did 96 Minutes, which paired you with Evan Ross, David Oyelowo, Markice Moore, and Hosea Chanchez. You did really good with the character, which was also somewhat villainous. In 96 minutes, what was it like bringing the role of JJ to life?

 Jon Chaffin: That was an awesome experience to work with Aimee Lagos, who wrote and directed, David Oyelowo who is amazing at what he does, Evan Ross, and Markice Moore. It was really great. I knew people like that character, but it was also a learning experience. This was earlier in my career. It was a good learning curve to be on set with those veterans. I tried to learn as much as I could, and bring honesty and truth to the role. You never know how it will come out or how people will gravitate to it. You hope for good. I’ve played a variety of roles. To me, I don’t get caught up in the role. Each person has a story to tell. We are all humans and capable of the same thing. Each character deserves the same respect. I don’t get caught up in the idea of being type-cast. I make it a point not to play each role the same way because they’re all different.

 U.G. Digital Mag: The phrase you said, “I Love what I do”; that’s where we all want to get. That resonated really good in King Hedley II. I haven’t seen it yet because I’m in Ohio, but I’ve seen the promo. I’ve seen your postings on social media, and I see the postings from others. It appears to have done extremely well for you. 

 Jon Chaffin: Yea. King Hedley II is one of August Wilson’s plays. It’s set in 1985 in his ten-play cycle in Pittsburgh in the Hill district, about King, who is returning home from a 7-year prison stint, and he’s trying to reingratiate himself into society, his wife is pregnant, and he’s trying to start a business to make money to get going in life. I play Mister, his best friend, side kick, and sometimes business partner. It was a great opportunity to get on stage and do this play, and say those words. Michele Shay who is an August Wilson-ian; she originates the role of Louise in Seven Guitars. She and Viola Davis did it on Broadway. She’s done a number of August Wilson’s plays, and she directed this production. Like you saw on Instagram, we had a great turn-out. A lot of my cast members came out, and a lot of celebrities came out. It’s a timely piece. It’s set in ’85, but the challenges they were dealing with are prevalent today in what we deal with in society. To be able to go on stage and do theatre; there’s something in that. There’s an energy you don’t get with a television show or movie. In theatre, the audience is right there and in the moment. They laugh at things you didn’t expect them to laugh at, and then they don’t laugh when you thought they would. It’s like, you have to be totally focused and in a zone with theatre. It’s a great workout, and I always wanted to do something by August Wilson. When the opportunity came, I jumped in with both feet. I plan to do more. I hope to do another play if not this year, definitely next year. We did this out here in LA, which is not known for theatre, although they’ve done some great theatre, and it was great to get the response we got.

 U.G. Digital Mag: What’s the biggest lesson in your journey?

 Jon Chaffin: Not to expect anything. Roll with the punches. Don’t expect anyone to give you anything, and don’t expect a return on your investment. We want what we want right then, but a career takes time to develop. I’ve learned to be patient. I’ve learned to work hard, and believe in myself. In acting, moreso than any other career or vocation, you use yourself, and need to know who you are as a person. The more you know, and the more comfortable you are, the more you can look at your flaws and embrace the imperfections, and the more you can give to the character and story. That’s what makes a great actor. They’re able to give freely of themselves, and unblock the extra. I’ve just learned to be a professional but not expect anything and work hard. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: What have you taken away from the level of success black actors are beginning to see? You have people like Gabrielle Union, and you have Sanaa Lathan who was doing Shots Fired which was shockingly canceled… I thought it was so dope … but even outside of that, people like Tyler Perry are doing so amazing, and bringing opportunities to the table. I know when you came into this, the opportunities were fewer, and farther between. There’s been so much growth. 

  Jon Chaffin: Everything happens in waves. If you really think about it, in the nineties and earlier 2000s, we has a lot of shows, but we also were building the networks up. The CW was there, then they canceled Girlfriends, Fox had Martin and Living Single, NBC had The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. We had a lot of shows and then they died off. But now, especially with social media, people can express what they want to see, and everybody has the ability to voice their opinions as far as what they want. The conversation is being blown open. It’s a great time because there’s so much content, and so many avenues to get it out. It’s not just the major networks anymore. Sign up for cable and you get hundreds of channels. Then the streaming services. Netflix and Hulu. All these avenues, and everyone vies for attention. People are watching television on phones and laptops now. It’s a great time for artists of color to get opportunities, and create their own opportunities. Shots Fired, I thought it was great as well, but you also realize it’s a business. Shows will come and go. Sanaa Lathan will be on something else when you look up because she’s amazing. Its hard to get a show to a second season, third, and fourth. I can’t even go through all the shows that are out. People ask me if I’ve seen Game of Thrones, and I haven’t. I’m like, it’s seven seasons in. Ain’t no point of even jumping in now. I would literally have to spend my whole week or two glued to the television. I just don’t have that time. That goes to show how much is out there. You try to find what you like and ride with them. You miss a week or two and get left behind. The way the shows are done now is changing. They don’t do 23 episodes in a season. Now they do 10 or 13. They air the first 10 in the spring, and then you don’t see it again until the fall. I was just talking with my fiancé about when How to Get Away with Murder is coming back on. I feel like I haven’t seen it in forever. It’s so many other things you’re watching. It’s good and bad. Right now it’s a great time for actors, writers, and producers. There’s such a need for content, and so many more avenues to get it out. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: You’re right, though. I’m the exact same way in the fact that I work so much that I miss a lot of TV. My wife and I just started streaming, and we’re doing Roku now. 

 Jon Chaffin: Right. That’s where the industry is going. People were hanging on for sports, but you look at Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, and soon the services will be as much as cable because you’ll have 5 or 6 subscriptions. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: Right. I just binge watched Survivor’s Remorse, and saw how amazing it was. You’re definitely right about the content out there. What are you most thankful for?

 Jon Chaffin: Just being able to do what I love. Having the opportunity to pursue my dreams. I’m thankful for life and good health. We take for granted the little things. I‘m grateful I’ve been gifted this talent to entertain, and the opportunity to pursue it, perfect it, and work at it. We spoke earlier about you leaving your job to do what you love. I’m a firm believer of not living your life with what ifs. As you have children, and I don’t but hope to some day, you want to push them to pursue their goals some day. It would be hard if I didn’t do it for myself. I want to lead by example. Go after what you truly desire in your heart because tomorrow is not promised. We’re all going to die at some point, so when you realize that, you come to realize nothing is as serious as we make it. Live a life that it pleasing to yourself that you can enjoy. Try not to hurt anybody in the process. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: Everyone has watched your journey. We saw that you went to school and put yourself in a place to be noticed. What advice do you offer to those out there who dream of this type of life, or any profession?

 Jon Chaffin: I would say learn as much about the path that you are about to take. Understand that it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. Have a talk with yourself about the reasons for wanting to do it. I get asked a lot about how someone should start, and when you tell them, they have a look like “I actually have to do work?”. What are you doing it for? Do you want to be seen and famous, or is there something you have to get out, or stories you have to tell? That’s why I ask people. If this is something you want to do, you have to believe it is possible. You can’t get discouraged by the naysayers. Fulfill the promise to yourself. Push yourself and strive to go that extra mile. What people don’t understand is it’s not hard. It’s just hard to believe. That’s the hardest part. Once you conquer that part, the rest is about putting in the work and letting the chips fall where they may. You have people who pursue for years and it’s like there’s nothing; then you have people who step off the boat and jump and they blow up. I can’t say it will take ten years, or ten days. Every path is different. I say to stay encouraged. Learn the business and craft. Study it. You’ll have to study it for the rest of your life. You’ll never have it all. We grow, evolve, experience life and change, and you have to incorporate it into your work. You have to believe in yourself. That’s what I believe is the formula. If you need to listen to motivational speakers to keep you motivated, do it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t second guess sometimes, or wonder if something was going to work. I also ask myself if there would be anything else that would make me more happy, and luckily that answer has been no. That’s how I know I’m on the right path, but if there’s something else you can do to make you happy, I say go and do that. This is a tough business and it’s not for the faint at heart. 

 U.G. Digital Mag: I thank you for so many things, especially the encouragement that I and so many others get. Again, we watched you work from the bottom up. I take it back to the show as well. I love the show and character. I’m counting down til next Tuesday. It’s dope and I love what you guys do. I appreciate your time. It’s cool to connect with people you admire. 

 Jon Chaffin: I appreciate you man. Thank you so much. The words gave me life today and I needed that.

[mousedetective]

Never Will I Forget The Deep Shadows, Never Will I Waste The Moon’s Light (1/15 or 16)

So yes, I did not finish it last night. ::hangs head:: I will finish it today, though, mark my words! This is a very Sherlock-centric story, but there is also a ton of Molly (though not Sherlolly...we’ll leave that for a possible sequel, as I wanted to leave this semi-S2 compliant) and an epic magical confrontation with Moriarty and...

Oh. Did I mention that Sherlock is a magician? Because he is.

Anyway, I’m reposting the existing chapters leading up to the reveal on WIP Big Bang, along with the new chapters, so it’s all starting over on AO3 so new people can discover this story.There is also pretty art by Red Bess Rackham that I will have properly linked on the first chapter hopefully soonish, so please enjoy!

~~~

Never Will I Forget The Deep Shadows, Never Will I Waste The Moon’s Light - The Holmes brothers come from a long line of powerful magic practitioners, but they are forced to keep their skills a secret. When Molly accidentally finds out about Sherlock’s powers and doesn’t turn away from him he slowly realizes that this pleases him, but soon enough he gets careless and is put in a position he would rather not be in, especially when others find out that she knows and attempt to use her as a pawn in their own games and machinations.

Read Chapter 1 @ AO3 | Buy Me A Coffee? | Send Me A Prompt

Mycroft stood regally by the fireplace in his study. ”You know you have to keep it a secret, Sherlock. No mortal can know.”

He was lounging in the chair he favored, his leg over the arm. Only when he really wanted to annoy his brother did he toss all sense of decorum and propriety out the window, especially since the chair wasn’t that comfortable to begin with and the position made it less so. ”Easy enough for you to say. Your assistant who’s tied to you nearly twenty-four hours a day is one of us.”

“Well, that’s what you get for going and getting attached to a mortal army doctor, a mortal pathologist and a mortal inspector at Scotland Yard,” Mycroft said, a hint of snideness in his tone.

“And a mortal housekeeper,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. “Yes, I know. I set myself up among mortals. I purposefully chose to live among them. It’s my own fault for that. Etcetera, etcetera. You’ve had this tune for years.” He couldn’t stand the position anymore so he put himself to rights and then simply slumped to the side, resting his elbow on the arm of the chair and settling his cheek on his knuckles. “At least I didn’t become a hermit like Sherrinford.”

“Sherrinford had no other choice,” Mycroft said quietly, gazing into the fire. “Not after the incident.” He lifted the snifter of brandy in his hand and took a sip. “And if you aren’t careful, Sherlock, with your continued pushing yourself to your absolute limits, you might be next.”

Sherlock bit back a sigh. His brother had always felt himself his keeper, ever since he was young. It appeared that would never change, not in a million years. He wondered when he would ever get out from under his brother’s thumb. Possibly never, he supposed. Perhaps if Sherrinford…no, it didn’t do to dwell on that. No one in the family talked about it. No one admitted that Sherrinford existed, for the most part. He was an afterthought these days, as though he had never really been a part of the family.

He supposed if he wasn’t careful, one day, he might be an afterthought as well.

The world knew he was different. They knew he was a genius, a man who could solve the trickiest of tricky crimes. The ones that were deemed unsolvable by most. His reputation had grown steadily larger as time had gone by, ever since John had come into his life and started keeping the blog. The Detective and the Blogger, the Crime Fighting Duo. Oh, there were so many monikers for them, so many names. He was someone the world thought they knew every fascinating tidbit about, and what they didn’t know they wanted to learn.

But there was one secret they absolutely couldn’t know, as his brother was just now reminding him.

He, William Sherlock Scott Holmes, had been born with the ability to do magic.

Not the cheap parlour tricks that stage magicians could do, the illusions meant to wow and mystify and audience, the type of stuff that could be easily debunked. No, he knew real magic. Old magic. The kind of magic that traveled through bloodlines as old as time immortal, the stuff Druids talked of long ago. He could do almost anything, really. For one as young as he was, for someone who honestly didn’t study ancient texts half as hard as his brothers had or practice anything near as much he was twice as powerful as they were.

He just…didn’t care. It made him different, even more different than he already was. His brilliance had set him apart in many ways; being able to do magic, being something separate than mere mortals had been icing on a cake he had simply not wanted. When he had been a young child he had reveled in it, but when he got older, when Mycroft pressed the importance of hiding his abilities, hiding the truth about himself, when he saw what happened when someone trusted the wrong person…he was more than eager to do so. Being seen as just a cold, egotistical genius was fine by him.

And yet when Donovan had called him a freak he’d hated that term so much. He’d always kept that icy demeanor when she said it but the words hit like a blow to the gut. It was the worst thing to hear, the one insult that actually hurt. When the children he’d been around growing up had called him that, he’d held back tears until he had absolute privacy, then let tears fall. When he’d heard it as a teen, and later in his university years, he’d turned to heroin to numb it all away. By the time he was an adult he’d swallow it down and let it sit there, cutting on the way down, making him hate the world just a little more.

But his friends had healed those bits of him. It was true they didn’t know they whole truth, they could never know the whole truth, but over time, John and Molly and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson had made him feel…normal. Or at least more normal than he had ever felt in his life before. He appreciated that more than he could tell them. He wasn’t great at showing it, unfortunately; the Christmas party had made that abundantly clear, but he was willing to try harder. He supposed he could say it was a New Year’s resolution, if he actually believed in that type of twaddle. They had done some good for him; he supposed he should be better at showing them that they were important to him.

Even if they were mortal, and that meant he had to listen to his brother make snide commentary on the fact.

Mycroft turned to him. “You can’t afford to go into withdrawal, Sherlock,” he said. “I do not have the time, energy or resources to bring you out of it without questions being raised.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’re worried I’ll get careless and get caught because I’ve surrounded myself with mortals,” he said. “Mycroft, it’s not as though I spend my evenings in the sitting room. I do happen to have a bedroom, which is fitted, if you might recall, with a very good lock. Even you have trouble picking it.”

Mycroft glared slightly. “Still. You have a tendency to be reckless.”

Sherlock shook his head and stood up. “One day, brother dear, you’ll realize I am fully capable of living a life without your constant observation and interference. When that day comes, I’m sure I can have a list handy of other hobbies to catch your interest.” He made his way to the door of Mycroft’s study. “Good night.”

Mycroft said nothing and Sherlock opened the door and let himself out. He glanced at the large clock in the foyer and saw that it was only eleven thirty. So. It was still the old year. At least he didn’t begin the new year listening to his brother berate him for sins of the past and mistakes he’d never be able to fully make up for. That would have been tiresome. Anthea stood by the door with his coat and he took it from her, slipping it on before leaving Mycroft’s fortress and going out into the night.

He was not one for celebrations, not one for good signs and good omens, but the fact that he could start this new year on his own, breathing in the relatively fresh air of the city, taking the essence of London into himself led him to think that, perhaps, 2012 would be better than he had expected. As bad as some of the glimpses of possible futures he’d been given indicated it very well might be, there had been good things as well, images of laughter and love and warmth, and that had given him hope. After all, no one’s future was writ in stone. That was something he had been taught from a very young age, when he first learned about the art of divination. There was always room for interpretation.

And as he had decided at a very young age that no one was going to decide what happened in his life other than himself, he was going to be damn sure that if there were bad things to come, that their impact was far less than the good things.

Mark his words.

[webanalytics]

Is Facebook Organic Reach Really Dead? Here’s How to Break Through It for More Social Engagement

Every now and then, the overlords of the Internet decide to change things up in the digital marketing world.

And with how fast things change, it can sometimes be easy to miss a noteworthy tidbit of news.

One such tidbit recently came to light, and it’s definitely worth your attention.

Namely, Facebook has started taking steps to change the Organic Reach of pages on their platform.

And that has some implications for everyone.

It doesn’t matter if your Facebook Page shares memes, connects a community, or is a landing page for your brand.

You’re going to see some changes, and chances are they will come sooner rather than later.

To help cut through the clutter and keep a clear picture of the path ahead, I’m going to lay out what’s actually changing.

And at the end, we’ll give you some insightful ways to come out ahead.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to take action accordingly and still have a healthy Facebook presence.

But first, let’s talk a bit more about what Organic Reach actually is, and why it’s changing.

What is Facebook Organic Reach?

Organic Reach on Facebook is simply a measurement of how many people can find you on Facebook for free.

It’s much like organic rankings on a search engine, although in the case of Facebook it’s based on aspects like popularity, post frequency, and other contributing factors.

And when you think about the current state of Facebook, it seems logical that Facebook would be making some big changes.

With more and more content being generated and shared, plus with how the News Feeds curates the content you see, it’s natural that Facebook would need to fine-tune their system from time to time.

And so Facebook is making changes.

Specifically, they’re changing Organic Reach to look and feel a little more like the Paid Reach measurements.

The newer look really only changes a few minor elements, but the numbers will look bad nonetheless.

Previously, Facebook counted Organic Reach as any time an unpaid post appeared in someone’s News Feed.

Now, Organic Reach will only give you a hit if your unpaid post actually enters a person’s screen.

The changes don’t affect how your post is shown to anyone, nor does it really change anything about how posts are displayed at all.

It just affects how Organic Reach is tallied, but that makes a difference.

The seeming paradox then is that you can expect your Organic Search traffic to take a big hit, but that particular metric should be a lot more accurate.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, there’s a good reason for the death of Facebook’s Organic Reach:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

He goes on to discuss how Facebook will be changing to mitigate this issue.

Specifically, Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be better geared to curate content that builds meaningful relationships.

And it’s worth mentioning that Zuckerberg himself lost about $3.3 billion because of this decision.

But what exactly is this “death” in terms anyone can understand?

More importantly for you, how might this affect your business?

To give you an idea, you have to look back a little bit.

Because as of June 2016, the Organic Reach of a Facebook Page had fallen to a mere 2%.

That’s a crazy drop from just four years prior, and Facebook and Zuckerberg still think that there’s too much Organic Reach for a Page.

So it’s pretty clear that if 2% reach is too much, we’re nearing the end of an era in terms of Organic Reach being the best viable option for spreading your brand on social media.

And the implication is pretty clear for business owners.

Your page is going to have less Organic Reach.

And with Reach dropping, you can fully expect that engagement is going to go with it.

So at this point, you’re probably wondering if there is any hope beyond the doomsday hype?

The answer is yes.

Because Organic Reach is not totally gone, and it probably won’t ever be.

The key here is to simply understand the changes taking place in the Organic Reach algorithms.

The consensus is that Facebook waging war against low-quality content, which means there are still avenues you can take that will help your Organic Reach.

You simply need a different strategy than saturation.

So now that you know what’s going on, let’s look at some ways you can use these changes to your advantage.

Tip #1: Focus on quality, not quantity

First and foremost, you need to understand that Facebook is changing to emphasize quality over quantity.

I’m going to repeat that for emphasis: Quality over quantity is the first place to start.

There’s been a long-running misconception that posting more or less on Facebook equates to more reach, but that’s as ludicrous as treating a “Like” as a useful metric.

You’re just making things worse for yourself if your goal is to post as frequently as possible, especially with the new changes.

And posting infrequently doesn’t do you any favors either.

Because the data points to a truth that couldn’t be further from a quantity-driven approach.

First of all, studies have shown that a moderate amount of posting seems to edge out posting too much or too little.

So when there are fewer posts, it becomes less likely that a post gets lost in your audience’s feed.

Which means your Organic Reach is going to do better with just a few, high-quality posts.

But don’t get carried away thinking high-quality posts can still be posted as often as possible.

Because the data still points in the opposite direction.

Buffer conducted some tests that help prove this point beyond any doubt.

They started by evaluating how many posts were being created per day on their Page.

As you can note, over the course of 2016 and into 2017 they say a fairly significant drop in how many times they posted.

To be precise, they were posting at half the peak rate by the middle of 2017.

And oddly enough, this trend helped them increase their Organic Reach:

They went from capping out with an Organic Reach of ~70,000 to a top reach of ~170,000.

That’s a 100,000 Reach spike that can be directly related to the frequency with which they posted on their Page.

And what’s more, they also saw a boost in direct engagement from this study as well:

This is a powerful illustration of how simply posting less and focusing on quality can improve your overall Organic performance on Facebook.

And this isn’t just a fluke.

It starts and ends with original and share-worthy content that will actually engage your audience.

Which means you need to focus less on pumping out content and focus more on crafting something that’s truly shareworthy.

You’ll see better Organic Reach, and you won’t regret it.

Tip #2: Know what your audience is looking for

A high-quality post isn’t just going to come from nowhere.

It starts with a more concerted effort to offer higher-quality content around your brand as a whole.

That means finding topics that are meaningful and then generating something that’s both shareworthy and relevant.

The more specifically targeted your approach, the better off you’ll be.

Small changes go a long way in improving quality, and the ultimate application is up to your unique brand.

The only way to truly know what “quality” means for your Page is to create some, test it, and then start making changes.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any other direction before you just start creating content.

One place you can start is simply by knowing which posts are right on Facebook, such as video.

Sharpie does a great job of creating interesting video that generates views and shares throughout their audience.

Here’s a recent example of one of their videos that partners Sharpie with NBA star Chris Paul:

Even if you can’t partner with a celebrity, you can use video to help boost your Organic Reach and increase engagement.

And success on Facebook through video isn’t just speculation either.

There are plenty of success stories, like this one from Audi:

Even in the highly competitive automotive industry, they were able to boost their lead generation by almost 12%.

And if that doesn’t convince you, I highly recommend you go check out more success stories.

It doesn’t even have to be long video either, as Facebook recently launched their own Boomerang application.

And whether you use video or not, just remember that high-performing and popular Facebook posts are a mixture of entertaining and educational.

Don’t mistake that as an either/or situation.

You need a mix of both if you want to succeed.

Most importantly, I recommend looking into what online audiences are actually consuming these days.

You might love creating and sharing your podcast for a blog post, but you’ll get more facetime with a sharp video or even just a simple photo.

And then there’s also the problem of engagement baiting, which Facebook has started to crack down on.

You might think it’s okay to ask for Likes, Shares, or “votes,” but the dark days of those posts are behind us.

Facebook now filters posts like these and gives them a lower priority than posts with more engaging content and imagery.

So all things considered, you have a lot to consider when you’re trying to pin down what your audience wants to see.

But if you put in the effort, you can develop a system that keeps your brand in the spotlight without dipping into your ad budget.

Tip #3: Consider your timing

You may have heard the news already, but there is such a thing as an “optimal time” when you’re posting to Facebook.

It just depends on a few essential elements.

The basics are pretty simple though.

Knowing when Facebook tends to be most active overall can help you time your posts accordingly.

Studies show that sharing at different times will affect Likes, Shares, and overall engagement statistics.

You can also try to take advantage of multiple spikes like this, but remember you want quality over quantity.

One or two posts per day will do just fine.

If you post at the right time, it’s more likely that your audience will actually be on to see your post.

That by itself could increase your Organic Reach and help you engage with your followers.

But keep in mind that performance can be industry specific as well, so do your homework before you simply start changing all of your posting times.

And once you check your own industry’s trends, make sure that the information you uncovered accurately matches your own audience by examining your own Facebook Page’s Insights tab.

Your goal here is to simply avoid posting at times when your audience is unlikely to see posts.

If there’s a verifiable time when engagement and Reach dips, you might not want to share your best content at those times.

And there are a lot more studies on this topic than just the ones above.

Kissmetrics has put together research that verifies the science of timing posts.

All of this research points to one thing in regard to Organic Reach.

Namely, that it’s best for you to let the Facebook algorithm focus on delivering one piece of content to your audience.

This approach mitigates the need for Facebook to filter and select your strongest content.

If you only ever share your best content at the best times, Facebook will still work well for you.

The trick is just to know when to post on Facebook.

Do your own research, and then use the results you find to your advantage.

Tip #4: Variety helps, so start curating

Curation can be a tricky topic.

Why would you want to put another brand’s content on your page?

Isn’t that counterintuitive?

You may be surprised, but it could actually help.

Recent studies suggest that the curating on Facebook can solve many common issues faced by marketers:

As long as you’re mindful of brands and companies that have a strong following or high brand loyalty, you can leverage a strategic tag to increase your own engagement.

So it’s a good idea to start sharing more curated content in addition to the content you create.

Curating content is the relatively simple process of finding great content from other sources on the Internet and then sharing it with your own audience.

As long as you know your audience, and find posts that match your target, you can provide supplemental content that still helps your brand’s Organic Reach on Facebook.

It’s also a good idea to add tags to posts like this when and where it’s appropriate.

In essence, this practice “signals” to Facebook that you have interesting content that needs to be shown more often.

As long as you’re following your analytics closely with this type of targeting, you’ll see good results over time.

Tip #5: Stop selling

One of the biggest toe-stubbing moves that can hurt your Organic Reach is trying to sell too much.

And with Facebook essentially turning the tables on solely commercial content, this is a bigger deal than ever.

But think of it in terms of volume alone.

Even in your own industry, you’ve likely found that there’s an increasingly saturated social media network that you have to wade through.

With Facebook focusing more on engagement, simply trying to route traffic to your website can be a mistake.

That means that Facebook is also evaluating intent when it filters content.

This particular trend isn’t exactly in your favor.

And when you tack on that Facebook users are savvy enough to filter out the content that they don’t want to see even if it makes it past the News Feed algorithms, you have a recipe for disaster.

That’s why understanding where social media fits into the sales funnel and focusing on brand awareness will serve you better for Organic Reach.

Social media is a top-of-the-funnel endeavor, and you have to treat it that way.

Going for a hard sell just isn’t going to work, and that type of content is just going to get filtered out by either Facebook or your audience.

There’s a greater need now more than ever to engage directly with your community.

That means instead of just posting random articles, you need to find ways to have discussions on your Page.

You need to spend more time being active and replying to comments on posts, even unhelpful ones.

Because your audience craves acknowledgement more than anything.

They just want to be heard.

Real-time engagement can help the Organic Reach of your brand more than a sales-oriented post ever could.

That’s why you need to ditch the old sales funnel approach to social media and adopt a more accurate idea of what social funnels look like.

Notice how the elements in the top part of this funnel are more relationship oriented.

That’s because your Organic Reach relies on audience building with Facebook, not sales.

And I can’t over-emphasize how important this shift is.

Because business are almost always affected by changes to social networks, which is why the idea is to share content users are interested in and will actually engage with.

You need to worry about sales a little later, preferably once your audience is established and loyal to your brand.

Which oddly enough means you need to be smarter about your Facebook Ads budget.

Because that’s one of the best ways to invest in building your audience with a longer funnel.

You need to embrace Facebook as a pay-to-play game, because it is for better or worse.

More and more marketers are coming to Facebook, and it’s already the top source of paid social media in the world by a long shot.

Which means the only way you can play, or win, is to start investing your money in it wisely.

Try boosting posts that have already proven to be strong performers, not just the posts you think will perform well.

That means you need to post content first, then check your engagement.

Then if your audience engagement is strong, boost that post so that it reaches even more people.

In sum, create and boost great content, not just any content.

Because if recent trends have shown us anything, it’s that we’re only going to see an increase in spending on paid digital advertising in the coming years.

So learning to couple the pay-to-play element with the other tactics in this post is the best way to move forward.

Since you can’t just rest on your laurels and coast off of Organic Reach anymore, you have to take action.

Tip #6: Consider an alternative route

The final piece of advice that I want to leave you with revolves around a rather unsung element of Facebook: Groups.

From a marketing point of view, Facebook Groups have been relatively incognito due to how a sort of risk-reward equation that always tipped more toward risk.

It was just easier to post on your Page, pay for your ads, and ignore Groups.

But now, they’re looking more attractive.

And this makes sense. A Group around your brand is one that consumers will have to opt into.

Which means they get notifications and engage with your brand at a deeper level.

Plus, they’re free, which can’t be beat.

And Facebook has been giving quite a bit of attention to Groups lately:

With more than one billion Facebook users involved in Groups, we may well be looking at a new frontier for social media marketers.

It may take time to lay the groundwork and build your community, but there’s no denying the potential power of your own Group.

They could be the ultimate answer to the Organic Search issue.

Conclusion

The truth of the matter is that Facebook Organic Reach is not dead.

It’s just different than what you’re used to.

Facebook has changed the game, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still play it well.

You just have to realize that your metrics only look different. In reality, your Organic Reach is more accurate than ever, which is a good thing.

But these changes require that you take a new approach to maintaining and improving your social engagement.

A simple change like focusing on quality over quantity is by far the best places to start.

But more than that, try to find the format that fits your audience. Use blog posts, images, and especially video to engage to the fullest.

Then take strides to post your best content at the right time on the right day of the week.

You can also start to curate content that your audience will be interested in, which tells Facebook that your content is shareworthy.

Overall, just focus on brand building, not sales.

And remember that Facebook is now a pay-to-play system for marketers. If you want to win, bring your checkbook.

Finally, start considering Groups as an alternative for opt-in engagement. You could be suprised by what you find.

At the end of the day, your Organic Reach rises and falls on how well you execute the strategies in this post.

All you have to do now is find a way to stick with these changes.

What methods have worked best for keeping Organic Reach up for your brand?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from Search Results for “analytics” – The Kissmetrics Marketing Blog https://ift.tt/2K1l7hG #Digital #Analytics #Website

[alissaselezneva]

Is Facebook Organic Reach Really Dead? Here’s How to Break Through It for More Social Engagement

Every now and then, the overlords of the Internet decide to change things up in the digital marketing world.

And with how fast things change, it can sometimes be easy to miss a noteworthy tidbit of news.

One such tidbit recently came to light, and it’s definitely worth your attention.

Namely, Facebook has started taking steps to change the Organic Reach of pages on their platform.

And that has some implications for everyone.

It doesn’t matter if your Facebook Page shares memes, connects a community, or is a landing page for your brand.

You’re going to see some changes, and chances are they will come sooner rather than later.

To help cut through the clutter and keep a clear picture of the path ahead, I’m going to lay out what’s actually changing.

And at the end, we’ll give you some insightful ways to come out ahead.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to take action accordingly and still have a healthy Facebook presence.

But first, let’s talk a bit more about what Organic Reach actually is, and why it’s changing.

What is Facebook Organic Reach?

Organic Reach on Facebook is simply a measurement of how many people can find you on Facebook for free.

It’s much like organic rankings on a search engine, although in the case of Facebook it’s based on aspects like popularity, post frequency, and other contributing factors.

And when you think about the current state of Facebook, it seems logical that Facebook would be making some big changes.

With more and more content being generated and shared, plus with how the News Feeds curates the content you see, it’s natural that Facebook would need to fine-tune their system from time to time.

And so Facebook is making changes.

Specifically, they’re changing Organic Reach to look and feel a little more like the Paid Reach measurements.

The newer look really only changes a few minor elements, but the numbers will look bad nonetheless.

Previously, Facebook counted Organic Reach as any time an unpaid post appeared in someone’s News Feed.

Now, Organic Reach will only give you a hit if your unpaid post actually enters a person’s screen.

The changes don’t affect how your post is shown to anyone, nor does it really change anything about how posts are displayed at all.

It just affects how Organic Reach is tallied, but that makes a difference.

The seeming paradox then is that you can expect your Organic Search traffic to take a big hit, but that particular metric should be a lot more accurate.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, there’s a good reason for the death of Facebook’s Organic Reach:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

He goes on to discuss how Facebook will be changing to mitigate this issue.

Specifically, Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be better geared to curate content that builds meaningful relationships.

And it’s worth mentioning that Zuckerberg himself lost about $3.3 billion because of this decision.

But what exactly is this “death” in terms anyone can understand?

More importantly for you, how might this affect your business?

To give you an idea, you have to look back a little bit.

Because as of June 2016, the Organic Reach of a Facebook Page had fallen to a mere 2%.

That’s a crazy drop from just four years prior, and Facebook and Zuckerberg still think that there’s too much Organic Reach for a Page.

So it’s pretty clear that if 2% reach is too much, we’re nearing the end of an era in terms of Organic Reach being the best viable option for spreading your brand on social media.

And the implication is pretty clear for business owners.

Your page is going to have less Organic Reach.

And with Reach dropping, you can fully expect that engagement is going to go with it.

So at this point, you’re probably wondering if there is any hope beyond the doomsday hype?

The answer is yes.

Because Organic Reach is not totally gone, and it probably won’t ever be.

The key here is to simply understand the changes taking place in the Organic Reach algorithms.

The consensus is that Facebook waging war against low-quality content, which means there are still avenues you can take that will help your Organic Reach.

You simply need a different strategy than saturation.

So now that you know what’s going on, let’s look at some ways you can use these changes to your advantage.

Tip #1: Focus on quality, not quantity

First and foremost, you need to understand that Facebook is changing to emphasize quality over quantity.

I’m going to repeat that for emphasis: Quality over quantity is the first place to start.

There’s been a long-running misconception that posting more or less on Facebook equates to more reach, but that’s as ludicrous as treating a “Like” as a useful metric.

You’re just making things worse for yourself if your goal is to post as frequently as possible, especially with the new changes.

And posting infrequently doesn’t do you any favors either.

Because the data points to a truth that couldn’t be further from a quantity-driven approach.

First of all, studies have shown that a moderate amount of posting seems to edge out posting too much or too little.

So when there are fewer posts, it becomes less likely that a post gets lost in your audience’s feed.

Which means your Organic Reach is going to do better with just a few, high-quality posts.

But don’t get carried away thinking high-quality posts can still be posted as often as possible.

Because the data still points in the opposite direction.

Buffer conducted some tests that help prove this point beyond any doubt.

They started by evaluating how many posts were being created per day on their Page.

As you can note, over the course of 2016 and into 2017 they say a fairly significant drop in how many times they posted.

To be precise, they were posting at half the peak rate by the middle of 2017.

And oddly enough, this trend helped them increase their Organic Reach:

They went from capping out with an Organic Reach of ~70,000 to a top reach of ~170,000.

That’s a 100,000 Reach spike that can be directly related to the frequency with which they posted on their Page.

And what’s more, they also saw a boost in direct engagement from this study as well:

This is a powerful illustration of how simply posting less and focusing on quality can improve your overall Organic performance on Facebook.

And this isn’t just a fluke.

It starts and ends with original and share-worthy content that will actually engage your audience.

Which means you need to focus less on pumping out content and focus more on crafting something that’s truly shareworthy.

You’ll see better Organic Reach, and you won’t regret it.

Tip #2: Know what your audience is looking for

A high-quality post isn’t just going to come from nowhere.

It starts with a more concerted effort to offer higher-quality content around your brand as a whole.

That means finding topics that are meaningful and then generating something that’s both shareworthy and relevant.

The more specifically targeted your approach, the better off you’ll be.

Small changes go a long way in improving quality, and the ultimate application is up to your unique brand.

The only way to truly know what “quality” means for your Page is to create some, test it, and then start making changes.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any other direction before you just start creating content.

One place you can start is simply by knowing which posts are right on Facebook, such as video.

Sharpie does a great job of creating interesting video that generates views and shares throughout their audience.

Here’s a recent example of one of their videos that partners Sharpie with NBA star Chris Paul:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FSharpie%2Fvideos%2F10160286088165344%2F&show_text=0&width=560

Even if you can’t partner with a celebrity, you can use video to help boost your Organic Reach and increase engagement.

And success on Facebook through video isn’t just speculation either.

There are plenty of success stories, like this one from Audi:

Even in the highly competitive automotive industry, they were able to boost their lead generation by almost 12%.

And if that doesn’t convince you, I highly recommend you go check out more success stories.

It doesn’t even have to be long video either, as Facebook recently launched their own Boomerang application.

And whether you use video or not, just remember that high-performing and popular Facebook posts are a mixture of entertaining and educational.

Don’t mistake that as an either/or situation.

You need a mix of both if you want to succeed.

Most importantly, I recommend looking into what online audiences are actually consuming these days.

You might love creating and sharing your podcast for a blog post, but you’ll get more facetime with a sharp video or even just a simple photo.

And then there’s also the problem of engagement baiting, which Facebook has started to crack down on.

You might think it’s okay to ask for Likes, Shares, or “votes,” but the dark days of those posts are behind us.

Facebook now filters posts like these and gives them a lower priority than posts with more engaging content and imagery.

So all things considered, you have a lot to consider when you’re trying to pin down what your audience wants to see.

But if you put in the effort, you can develop a system that keeps your brand in the spotlight without dipping into your ad budget.

Tip #3: Consider your timing

You may have heard the news already, but there is such a thing as an “optimal time” when you’re posting to Facebook.

It just depends on a few essential elements.

The basics are pretty simple though.

Knowing when Facebook tends to be most active overall can help you time your posts accordingly.

Studies show that sharing at different times will affect Likes, Shares, and overall engagement statistics.

You can also try to take advantage of multiple spikes like this, but remember you want quality over quantity.

One or two posts per day will do just fine.

If you post at the right time, it’s more likely that your audience will actually be on to see your post.

That by itself could increase your Organic Reach and help you engage with your followers.

But keep in mind that performance can be industry specific as well, so do your homework before you simply start changing all of your posting times.

And once you check your own industry’s trends, make sure that the information you uncovered accurately matches your own audience by examining your own Facebook Page’s Insights tab.

Your goal here is to simply avoid posting at times when your audience is unlikely to see posts.

If there’s a verifiable time when engagement and Reach dips, you might not want to share your best content at those times.

And there are a lot more studies on this topic than just the ones above.

Kissmetrics has put together research that verifies the science of timing posts.

All of this research points to one thing in regard to Organic Reach.

Namely, that it’s best for you to let the Facebook algorithm focus on delivering one piece of content to your audience.

This approach mitigates the need for Facebook to filter and select your strongest content.

If you only ever share your best content at the best times, Facebook will still work well for you.

The trick is just to know when to post on Facebook.

Do your own research, and then use the results you find to your advantage.

Tip #4: Variety helps, so start curating

Curation can be a tricky topic.

Why would you want to put another brand’s content on your page?

Isn’t that counterintuitive?

You may be surprised, but it could actually help.

Recent studies suggest that the curating on Facebook can solve many common issues faced by marketers:

As long as you’re mindful of brands and companies that have a strong following or high brand loyalty, you can leverage a strategic tag to increase your own engagement.

So it’s a good idea to start sharing more curated content in addition to the content you create.

Curating content is the relatively simple process of finding great content from other sources on the Internet and then sharing it with your own audience.

As long as you know your audience, and find posts that match your target, you can provide supplemental content that still helps your brand’s Organic Reach on Facebook.

It’s also a good idea to add tags to posts like this when and where it’s appropriate.

In essence, this practice “signals” to Facebook that you have interesting content that needs to be shown more often.

As long as you’re following your analytics closely with this type of targeting, you’ll see good results over time.

Tip #5: Stop selling

One of the biggest toe-stubbing moves that can hurt your Organic Reach is trying to sell too much.

And with Facebook essentially turning the tables on solely commercial content, this is a bigger deal than ever.

But think of it in terms of volume alone.

Even in your own industry, you’ve likely found that there’s an increasingly saturated social media network that you have to wade through.

With Facebook focusing more on engagement, simply trying to route traffic to your website can be a mistake.

That means that Facebook is also evaluating intent when it filters content.

This particular trend isn’t exactly in your favor.

And when you tack on that Facebook users are savvy enough to filter out the content that they don’t want to see even if it makes it past the News Feed algorithms, you have a recipe for disaster.

That’s why understanding where social media fits into the sales funnel and focusing on brand awareness will serve you better for Organic Reach.

Social media is a top-of-the-funnel endeavor, and you have to treat it that way.

Going for a hard sell just isn’t going to work, and that type of content is just going to get filtered out by either Facebook or your audience.

There’s a greater need now more than ever to engage directly with your community.

That means instead of just posting random articles, you need to find ways to have discussions on your Page.

You need to spend more time being active and replying to comments on posts, even unhelpful ones.

Because your audience craves acknowledgement more than anything.

They just want to be heard.

Real-time engagement can help the Organic Reach of your brand more than a sales-oriented post ever could.

That’s why you need to ditch the old sales funnel approach to social media and adopt a more accurate idea of what social funnels look like.

Notice how the elements in the top part of this funnel are more relationship oriented.

That’s because your Organic Reach relies on audience building with Facebook, not sales.

And I can’t over-emphasize how important this shift is.

Because business are almost always affected by changes to social networks, which is why the idea is to share content users are interested in and will actually engage with.

You need to worry about sales a little later, preferably once your audience is established and loyal to your brand.

Which oddly enough means you need to be smarter about your Facebook Ads budget.

Because that’s one of the best ways to invest in building your audience with a longer funnel.

You need to embrace Facebook as a pay-to-play game, because it is for better or worse.

More and more marketers are coming to Facebook, and it’s already the top source of paid social media in the world by a long shot.

Which means the only way you can play, or win, is to start investing your money in it wisely.

Try boosting posts that have already proven to be strong performers, not just the posts you think will perform well.

That means you need to post content first, then check your engagement.

Then if your audience engagement is strong, boost that post so that it reaches even more people.

In sum, create and boost great content, not just any content.

Because if recent trends have shown us anything, it’s that we’re only going to see an increase in spending on paid digital advertising in the coming years.

So learning to couple the pay-to-play element with the other tactics in this post is the best way to move forward.

Since you can’t just rest on your laurels and coast off of Organic Reach anymore, you have to take action.

Tip #6: Consider an alternative route

The final piece of advice that I want to leave you with revolves around a rather unsung element of Facebook: Groups.

From a marketing point of view, Facebook Groups have been relatively incognito due to how a sort of risk-reward equation that always tipped more toward risk.

It was just easier to post on your Page, pay for your ads, and ignore Groups.

But now, they’re looking more attractive.

And this makes sense. A Group around your brand is one that consumers will have to opt into.

Which means they get notifications and engage with your brand at a deeper level.

Plus, they’re free, which can’t be beat.

And Facebook has been giving quite a bit of attention to Groups lately:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffacebook%2Fvideos%2F10155948336496729%2F&show_text=0&width=560

With more than one billion Facebook users involved in Groups, we may well be looking at a new frontier for social media marketers.

It may take time to lay the groundwork and build your community, but there’s no denying the potential power of your own Group.

They could be the ultimate answer to the Organic Search issue.

Conclusion

The truth of the matter is that Facebook Organic Reach is not dead.

It’s just different than what you’re used to.

Facebook has changed the game, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still play it well.

You just have to realize that your metrics only look different. In reality, your Organic Reach is more accurate than ever, which is a good thing.

But these changes require that you take a new approach to maintaining and improving your social engagement.

A simple change like focusing on quality over quantity is by far the best places to start.

But more than that, try to find the format that fits your audience. Use blog posts, images, and especially video to engage to the fullest.

Then take strides to post your best content at the right time on the right day of the week.

You can also start to curate content that your audience will be interested in, which tells Facebook that your content is shareworthy.

Overall, just focus on brand building, not sales.

And remember that Facebook is now a pay-to-play system for marketers. If you want to win, bring your checkbook.

Finally, start considering Groups as an alternative for opt-in engagement. You could be suprised by what you find.

At the end of the day, your Organic Reach rises and falls on how well you execute the strategies in this post.

All you have to do now is find a way to stick with these changes.

What methods have worked best for keeping Organic Reach up for your brand?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

from WordPress https://reviewandbonuss.wordpress.com/2018/04/19/is-facebook-organic-reach-really-dead-heres-how-to-break-through-it-for-more-social-engagement/

[filipeteimuraz]

Is Facebook Organic Reach Really Dead? Here’s How to Break Through It for More Social Engagement

Every now and then, the overlords of the Internet decide to change things up in the digital marketing world.

And with how fast things change, it can sometimes be easy to miss a noteworthy tidbit of news.

One such tidbit recently came to light, and it’s definitely worth your attention.

Namely, Facebook has started taking steps to change the Organic Reach of pages on their platform.

And that has some implications for everyone.

It doesn’t matter if your Facebook Page shares memes, connects a community, or is a landing page for your brand.

You’re going to see some changes, and chances are they will come sooner rather than later.

To help cut through the clutter and keep a clear picture of the path ahead, I’m going to lay out what’s actually changing.

And at the end, we’ll give you some insightful ways to come out ahead.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to take action accordingly and still have a healthy Facebook presence.

But first, let’s talk a bit more about what Organic Reach actually is, and why it’s changing.

What is Facebook Organic Reach?

Organic Reach on Facebook is simply a measurement of how many people can find you on Facebook for free.

It’s much like organic rankings on a search engine, although in the case of Facebook it’s based on aspects like popularity, post frequency, and other contributing factors.

And when you think about the current state of Facebook, it seems logical that Facebook would be making some big changes.

With more and more content being generated and shared, plus with how the News Feeds curates the content you see, it’s natural that Facebook would need to fine-tune their system from time to time.

And so Facebook is making changes.

Specifically, they’re changing Organic Reach to look and feel a little more like the Paid Reach measurements.

The newer look really only changes a few minor elements, but the numbers will look bad nonetheless.

Previously, Facebook counted Organic Reach as any time an unpaid post appeared in someone’s News Feed.

Now, Organic Reach will only give you a hit if your unpaid post actually enters a person’s screen.

The changes don’t affect how your post is shown to anyone, nor does it really change anything about how posts are displayed at all.

It just affects how Organic Reach is tallied, but that makes a difference.

The seeming paradox then is that you can expect your Organic Search traffic to take a big hit, but that particular metric should be a lot more accurate.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, there’s a good reason for the death of Facebook’s Organic Reach:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

He goes on to discuss how Facebook will be changing to mitigate this issue.

Specifically, Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be better geared to curate content that builds meaningful relationships.

And it’s worth mentioning that Zuckerberg himself lost about $3.3 billion because of this decision.

But what exactly is this “death” in terms anyone can understand?

More importantly for you, how might this affect your business?

To give you an idea, you have to look back a little bit.

Because as of June 2016, the Organic Reach of a Facebook Page had fallen to a mere 2%.

That’s a crazy drop from just four years prior, and Facebook and Zuckerberg still think that there’s too much Organic Reach for a Page.

So it’s pretty clear that if 2% reach is too much, we’re nearing the end of an era in terms of Organic Reach being the best viable option for spreading your brand on social media.

And the implication is pretty clear for business owners.

Your page is going to have less Organic Reach.

And with Reach dropping, you can fully expect that engagement is going to go with it.

So at this point, you’re probably wondering if there is any hope beyond the doomsday hype?

The answer is yes.

Because Organic Reach is not totally gone, and it probably won’t ever be.

The key here is to simply understand the changes taking place in the Organic Reach algorithms.

The consensus is that Facebook waging war against low-quality content, which means there are still avenues you can take that will help your Organic Reach.

You simply need a different strategy than saturation.

So now that you know what’s going on, let’s look at some ways you can use these changes to your advantage.

Tip #1: Focus on quality, not quantity

First and foremost, you need to understand that Facebook is changing to emphasize quality over quantity.

I’m going to repeat that for emphasis: Quality over quantity is the first place to start.

There’s been a long-running misconception that posting more or less on Facebook equates to more reach, but that’s as ludicrous as treating a “Like” as a useful metric.

You’re just making things worse for yourself if your goal is to post as frequently as possible, especially with the new changes.

And posting infrequently doesn’t do you any favors either.

Because the data points to a truth that couldn’t be further from a quantity-driven approach.

First of all, studies have shown that a moderate amount of posting seems to edge out posting too much or too little.

So when there are fewer posts, it becomes less likely that a post gets lost in your audience’s feed.

Which means your Organic Reach is going to do better with just a few, high-quality posts.

But don’t get carried away thinking high-quality posts can still be posted as often as possible.

Because the data still points in the opposite direction.

Buffer conducted some tests that help prove this point beyond any doubt.

They started by evaluating how many posts were being created per day on their Page.

As you can note, over the course of 2016 and into 2017 they say a fairly significant drop in how many times they posted.

To be precise, they were posting at half the peak rate by the middle of 2017.

And oddly enough, this trend helped them increase their Organic Reach:

They went from capping out with an Organic Reach of ~70,000 to a top reach of ~170,000.

That’s a 100,000 Reach spike that can be directly related to the frequency with which they posted on their Page.

And what’s more, they also saw a boost in direct engagement from this study as well:

This is a powerful illustration of how simply posting less and focusing on quality can improve your overall Organic performance on Facebook.

And this isn’t just a fluke.

It starts and ends with original and share-worthy content that will actually engage your audience.

Which means you need to focus less on pumping out content and focus more on crafting something that’s truly shareworthy.

You’ll see better Organic Reach, and you won’t regret it.

Tip #2: Know what your audience is looking for

A high-quality post isn’t just going to come from nowhere.

It starts with a more concerted effort to offer higher-quality content around your brand as a whole.

That means finding topics that are meaningful and then generating something that’s both shareworthy and relevant.

The more specifically targeted your approach, the better off you’ll be.

Small changes go a long way in improving quality, and the ultimate application is up to your unique brand.

The only way to truly know what “quality” means for your Page is to create some, test it, and then start making changes.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any other direction before you just start creating content.

One place you can start is simply by knowing which posts are right on Facebook, such as video.

Sharpie does a great job of creating interesting video that generates views and shares throughout their audience.

Here’s a recent example of one of their videos that partners Sharpie with NBA star Chris Paul:

Even if you can’t partner with a celebrity, you can use video to help boost your Organic Reach and increase engagement.

And success on Facebook through video isn’t just speculation either.

There are plenty of success stories, like this one from Audi:

Even in the highly competitive automotive industry, they were able to boost their lead generation by almost 12%.

And if that doesn’t convince you, I highly recommend you go check out more success stories.

It doesn’t even have to be long video either, as Facebook recently launched their own Boomerang application.

And whether you use video or not, just remember that high-performing and popular Facebook posts are a mixture of entertaining and educational.

Don’t mistake that as an either/or situation.

You need a mix of both if you want to succeed.

Most importantly, I recommend looking into what online audiences are actually consuming these days.

You might love creating and sharing your podcast for a blog post, but you’ll get more facetime with a sharp video or even just a simple photo.

And then there’s also the problem of engagement baiting, which Facebook has started to crack down on.

You might think it’s okay to ask for Likes, Shares, or “votes,” but the dark days of those posts are behind us.

Facebook now filters posts like these and gives them a lower priority than posts with more engaging content and imagery.

So all things considered, you have a lot to consider when you’re trying to pin down what your audience wants to see.

But if you put in the effort, you can develop a system that keeps your brand in the spotlight without dipping into your ad budget.

Tip #3: Consider your timing

You may have heard the news already, but there is such a thing as an “optimal time” when you’re posting to Facebook.

It just depends on a few essential elements.

The basics are pretty simple though.

Knowing when Facebook tends to be most active overall can help you time your posts accordingly.

Studies show that sharing at different times will affect Likes, Shares, and overall engagement statistics.

You can also try to take advantage of multiple spikes like this, but remember you want quality over quantity.

One or two posts per day will do just fine.

If you post at the right time, it’s more likely that your audience will actually be on to see your post.

That by itself could increase your Organic Reach and help you engage with your followers.

But keep in mind that performance can be industry specific as well, so do your homework before you simply start changing all of your posting times.

And once you check your own industry’s trends, make sure that the information you uncovered accurately matches your own audience by examining your own Facebook Page’s Insights tab.

Your goal here is to simply avoid posting at times when your audience is unlikely to see posts.

If there’s a verifiable time when engagement and Reach dips, you might not want to share your best content at those times.

And there are a lot more studies on this topic than just the ones above.

Kissmetrics has put together research that verifies the science of timing posts.

All of this research points to one thing in regard to Organic Reach.

Namely, that it’s best for you to let the Facebook algorithm focus on delivering one piece of content to your audience.

This approach mitigates the need for Facebook to filter and select your strongest content.

If you only ever share your best content at the best times, Facebook will still work well for you.

The trick is just to know when to post on Facebook.

Do your own research, and then use the results you find to your advantage.

Tip #4: Variety helps, so start curating

Curation can be a tricky topic.

Why would you want to put another brand’s content on your page?

Isn’t that counterintuitive?

You may be surprised, but it could actually help.

Recent studies suggest that the curating on Facebook can solve many common issues faced by marketers:

As long as you’re mindful of brands and companies that have a strong following or high brand loyalty, you can leverage a strategic tag to increase your own engagement.

So it’s a good idea to start sharing more curated content in addition to the content you create.

Curating content is the relatively simple process of finding great content from other sources on the Internet and then sharing it with your own audience.

As long as you know your audience, and find posts that match your target, you can provide supplemental content that still helps your brand’s Organic Reach on Facebook.

It’s also a good idea to add tags to posts like this when and where it’s appropriate.

In essence, this practice “signals” to Facebook that you have interesting content that needs to be shown more often.

As long as you’re following your analytics closely with this type of targeting, you’ll see good results over time.

Tip #5: Stop selling

One of the biggest toe-stubbing moves that can hurt your Organic Reach is trying to sell too much.

And with Facebook essentially turning the tables on solely commercial content, this is a bigger deal than ever.

But think of it in terms of volume alone.

Even in your own industry, you’ve likely found that there’s an increasingly saturated social media network that you have to wade through.

With Facebook focusing more on engagement, simply trying to route traffic to your website can be a mistake.

That means that Facebook is also evaluating intent when it filters content.

This particular trend isn’t exactly in your favor.

And when you tack on that Facebook users are savvy enough to filter out the content that they don’t want to see even if it makes it past the News Feed algorithms, you have a recipe for disaster.

That’s why understanding where social media fits into the sales funnel and focusing on brand awareness will serve you better for Organic Reach.

Social media is a top-of-the-funnel endeavor, and you have to treat it that way.

Going for a hard sell just isn’t going to work, and that type of content is just going to get filtered out by either Facebook or your audience.

There’s a greater need now more than ever to engage directly with your community.

That means instead of just posting random articles, you need to find ways to have discussions on your Page.

You need to spend more time being active and replying to comments on posts, even unhelpful ones.

Because your audience craves acknowledgement more than anything.

They just want to be heard.

Real-time engagement can help the Organic Reach of your brand more than a sales-oriented post ever could.

That’s why you need to ditch the old sales funnel approach to social media and adopt a more accurate idea of what social funnels look like.

Notice how the elements in the top part of this funnel are more relationship oriented.

That’s because your Organic Reach relies on audience building with Facebook, not sales.

And I can’t over-emphasize how important this shift is.

Because business are almost always affected by changes to social networks, which is why the idea is to share content users are interested in and will actually engage with.

You need to worry about sales a little later, preferably once your audience is established and loyal to your brand.

Which oddly enough means you need to be smarter about your Facebook Ads budget.

Because that’s one of the best ways to invest in building your audience with a longer funnel.

You need to embrace Facebook as a pay-to-play game, because it is for better or worse.

More and more marketers are coming to Facebook, and it’s already the top source of paid social media in the world by a long shot.

Which means the only way you can play, or win, is to start investing your money in it wisely.

Try boosting posts that have already proven to be strong performers, not just the posts you think will perform well.

That means you need to post content first, then check your engagement.

Then if your audience engagement is strong, boost that post so that it reaches even more people.

In sum, create and boost great content, not just any content.

Because if recent trends have shown us anything, it’s that we’re only going to see an increase in spending on paid digital advertising in the coming years.

So learning to couple the pay-to-play element with the other tactics in this post is the best way to move forward.

Since you can’t just rest on your laurels and coast off of Organic Reach anymore, you have to take action.

Tip #6: Consider an alternative route

The final piece of advice that I want to leave you with revolves around a rather unsung element of Facebook: Groups.

From a marketing point of view, Facebook Groups have been relatively incognito due to how a sort of risk-reward equation that always tipped more toward risk.

It was just easier to post on your Page, pay for your ads, and ignore Groups.

But now, they’re looking more attractive.

And this makes sense. A Group around your brand is one that consumers will have to opt into.

Which means they get notifications and engage with your brand at a deeper level.

Plus, they’re free, which can’t be beat.

And Facebook has been giving quite a bit of attention to Groups lately:

With more than one billion Facebook users involved in Groups, we may well be looking at a new frontier for social media marketers.

It may take time to lay the groundwork and build your community, but there’s no denying the potential power of your own Group.

They could be the ultimate answer to the Organic Search issue.

Conclusion

The truth of the matter is that Facebook Organic Reach is not dead.

It’s just different than what you’re used to.

Facebook has changed the game, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still play it well.

You just have to realize that your metrics only look different. In reality, your Organic Reach is more accurate than ever, which is a good thing.

But these changes require that you take a new approach to maintaining and improving your social engagement.

A simple change like focusing on quality over quantity is by far the best places to start.

But more than that, try to find the format that fits your audience. Use blog posts, images, and especially video to engage to the fullest.

Then take strides to post your best content at the right time on the right day of the week.

You can also start to curate content that your audience will be interested in, which tells Facebook that your content is shareworthy.

Overall, just focus on brand building, not sales.

And remember that Facebook is now a pay-to-play system for marketers. If you want to win, bring your checkbook.

Finally, start considering Groups as an alternative for opt-in engagement. You could be suprised by what you find.

At the end of the day, your Organic Reach rises and falls on how well you execute the strategies in this post.

All you have to do now is find a way to stick with these changes.

What methods have worked best for keeping Organic Reach up for your brand?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2018/04/is-facebook-organic-reach-really-dead.html

[ericsburden-blog]

Is Facebook Organic Reach Really Dead? Here’s How to Break Through It for More Social Engagement

Every now and then, the overlords of the Internet decide to change things up in the digital marketing world.

And with how fast things change, it can sometimes be easy to miss a noteworthy tidbit of news.

One such tidbit recently came to light, and it’s definitely worth your attention.

Namely, Facebook has started taking steps to change the Organic Reach of pages on their platform.

And that has some implications for everyone.

It doesn’t matter if your Facebook Page shares memes, connects a community, or is a landing page for your brand.

You’re going to see some changes, and chances are they will come sooner rather than later.

To help cut through the clutter and keep a clear picture of the path ahead, I’m going to lay out what’s actually changing.

And at the end, we’ll give you some insightful ways to come out ahead.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to take action accordingly and still have a healthy Facebook presence.

But first, let’s talk a bit more about what Organic Reach actually is, and why it’s changing.

What is Facebook Organic Reach?

Organic Reach on Facebook is simply a measurement of how many people can find you on Facebook for free.

It’s much like organic rankings on a search engine, although in the case of Facebook it’s based on aspects like popularity, post frequency, and other contributing factors.

And when you think about the current state of Facebook, it seems logical that Facebook would be making some big changes.

With more and more content being generated and shared, plus with how the News Feeds curates the content you see, it’s natural that Facebook would need to fine-tune their system from time to time.

And so Facebook is making changes.

Specifically, they’re changing Organic Reach to look and feel a little more like the Paid Reach measurements.

The newer look really only changes a few minor elements, but the numbers will look bad nonetheless.

Previously, Facebook counted Organic Reach as any time an unpaid post appeared in someone’s News Feed.

Now, Organic Reach will only give you a hit if your unpaid post actually enters a person’s screen.

The changes don’t affect how your post is shown to anyone, nor does it really change anything about how posts are displayed at all.

It just affects how Organic Reach is tallied, but that makes a difference.

The seeming paradox then is that you can expect your Organic Search traffic to take a big hit, but that particular metric should be a lot more accurate.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, there’s a good reason for the death of Facebook’s Organic Reach:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

He goes on to discuss how Facebook will be changing to mitigate this issue.

Specifically, Zuckerberg wants Facebook to be better geared to curate content that builds meaningful relationships.

And it’s worth mentioning that Zuckerberg himself lost about $3.3 billion because of this decision.

But what exactly is this “death” in terms anyone can understand?

More importantly for you, how might this affect your business?

To give you an idea, you have to look back a little bit.

Because as of June 2016, the Organic Reach of a Facebook Page had fallen to a mere 2%.

That’s a crazy drop from just four years prior, and Facebook and Zuckerberg still think that there’s too much Organic Reach for a Page.

So it’s pretty clear that if 2% reach is too much, we’re nearing the end of an era in terms of Organic Reach being the best viable option for spreading your brand on social media.

And the implication is pretty clear for business owners.

Your page is going to have less Organic Reach.

And with Reach dropping, you can fully expect that engagement is going to go with it.

So at this point, you’re probably wondering if there is any hope beyond the doomsday hype?

The answer is yes.

Because Organic Reach is not totally gone, and it probably won’t ever be.

The key here is to simply understand the changes taking place in the Organic Reach algorithms.

The consensus is that Facebook waging war against low-quality content, which means there are still avenues you can take that will help your Organic Reach.

You simply need a different strategy than saturation.

So now that you know what’s going on, let’s look at some ways you can use these changes to your advantage.

Tip #1: Focus on quality, not quantity

First and foremost, you need to understand that Facebook is changing to emphasize quality over quantity.

I’m going to repeat that for emphasis: Quality over quantity is the first place to start.

There’s been a long-running misconception that posting more or less on Facebook equates to more reach, but that’s as ludicrous as treating a “Like” as a useful metric.

You’re just making things worse for yourself if your goal is to post as frequently as possible, especially with the new changes.

And posting infrequently doesn’t do you any favors either.

Because the data points to a truth that couldn’t be further from a quantity-driven approach.

First of all, studies have shown that a moderate amount of posting seems to edge out posting too much or too little.

So when there are fewer posts, it becomes less likely that a post gets lost in your audience’s feed.

Which means your Organic Reach is going to do better with just a few, high-quality posts.

But don’t get carried away thinking high-quality posts can still be posted as often as possible.

Because the data still points in the opposite direction.

Buffer conducted some tests that help prove this point beyond any doubt.

They started by evaluating how many posts were being created per day on their Page.

As you can note, over the course of 2016 and into 2017 they say a fairly significant drop in how many times they posted.

To be precise, they were posting at half the peak rate by the middle of 2017.

And oddly enough, this trend helped them increase their Organic Reach:

They went from capping out with an Organic Reach of ~70,000 to a top reach of ~170,000.

That’s a 100,000 Reach spike that can be directly related to the frequency with which they posted on their Page.

And what’s more, they also saw a boost in direct engagement from this study as well:

This is a powerful illustration of how simply posting less and focusing on quality can improve your overall Organic performance on Facebook.

And this isn’t just a fluke.

It starts and ends with original and share-worthy content that will actually engage your audience.

Which means you need to focus less on pumping out content and focus more on crafting something that’s truly shareworthy.

You’ll see better Organic Reach, and you won’t regret it.

Tip #2: Know what your audience is looking for

A high-quality post isn’t just going to come from nowhere.

It starts with a more concerted effort to offer higher-quality content around your brand as a whole.

That means finding topics that are meaningful and then generating something that’s both shareworthy and relevant.

The more specifically targeted your approach, the better off you’ll be.

Small changes go a long way in improving quality, and the ultimate application is up to your unique brand.

The only way to truly know what “quality” means for your Page is to create some, test it, and then start making changes.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any other direction before you just start creating content.

One place you can start is simply by knowing which posts are right on Facebook, such as video.

Sharpie does a great job of creating interesting video that generates views and shares throughout their audience.

Here’s a recent example of one of their videos that partners Sharpie with NBA star Chris Paul:

Even if you can’t partner with a celebrity, you can use video to help boost your Organic Reach and increase engagement.

And success on Facebook through video isn’t just speculation either.

There are plenty of success stories, like this one from Audi:

Even in the highly competitive automotive industry, they were able to boost their lead generation by almost 12%.

And if that doesn’t convince you, I highly recommend you go check out more success stories.

It doesn’t even have to be long video either, as Facebook recently launched their own Boomerang application.

And whether you use video or not, just remember that high-performing and popular Facebook posts are a mixture of entertaining and educational.

Don’t mistake that as an either/or situation.

You need a mix of both if you want to succeed.

Most importantly, I recommend looking into what online audiences are actually consuming these days.

You might love creating and sharing your podcast for a blog post, but you’ll get more facetime with a sharp video or even just a simple photo.

And then there’s also the problem of engagement baiting, which Facebook has started to crack down on.

You might think it’s okay to ask for Likes, Shares, or “votes,” but the dark days of those posts are behind us.

Facebook now filters posts like these and gives them a lower priority than posts with more engaging content and imagery.

So all things considered, you have a lot to consider when you’re trying to pin down what your audience wants to see.

But if you put in the effort, you can develop a system that keeps your brand in the spotlight without dipping into your ad budget.

Tip #3: Consider your timing

You may have heard the news already, but there is such a thing as an “optimal time” when you’re posting to Facebook.

It just depends on a few essential elements.

The basics are pretty simple though.

Knowing when Facebook tends to be most active overall can help you time your posts accordingly.

Studies show that sharing at different times will affect Likes, Shares, and overall engagement statistics.

You can also try to take advantage of multiple spikes like this, but remember you want quality over quantity.

One or two posts per day will do just fine.

If you post at the right time, it’s more likely that your audience will actually be on to see your post.

That by itself could increase your Organic Reach and help you engage with your followers.

But keep in mind that performance can be industry specific as well, so do your homework before you simply start changing all of your posting times.

And once you check your own industry’s trends, make sure that the information you uncovered accurately matches your own audience by examining your own Facebook Page’s Insights tab.

Your goal here is to simply avoid posting at times when your audience is unlikely to see posts.

If there’s a verifiable time when engagement and Reach dips, you might not want to share your best content at those times.

And there are a lot more studies on this topic than just the ones above.

Kissmetrics has put together research that verifies the science of timing posts.

All of this research points to one thing in regard to Organic Reach.

Namely, that it’s best for you to let the Facebook algorithm focus on delivering one piece of content to your audience.

This approach mitigates the need for Facebook to filter and select your strongest content.

If you only ever share your best content at the best times, Facebook will still work well for you.

The trick is just to know when to post on Facebook.

Do your own research, and then use the results you find to your advantage.

Tip #4: Variety helps, so start curating

Curation can be a tricky topic.

Why would you want to put another brand’s content on your page?

Isn’t that counterintuitive?

You may be surprised, but it could actually help.

Recent studies suggest that the curating on Facebook can solve many common issues faced by marketers:

As long as you’re mindful of brands and companies that have a strong following or high brand loyalty, you can leverage a strategic tag to increase your own engagement.

So it’s a good idea to start sharing more curated content in addition to the content you create.

Curating content is the relatively simple process of finding great content from other sources on the Internet and then sharing it with your own audience.

As long as you know your audience, and find posts that match your target, you can provide supplemental content that still helps your brand’s Organic Reach on Facebook.

It’s also a good idea to add tags to posts like this when and where it’s appropriate.

In essence, this practice “signals” to Facebook that you have interesting content that needs to be shown more often.

As long as you’re following your analytics closely with this type of targeting, you’ll see good results over time.

Tip #5: Stop selling

One of the biggest toe-stubbing moves that can hurt your Organic Reach is trying to sell too much.

And with Facebook essentially turning the tables on solely commercial content, this is a bigger deal than ever.

But think of it in terms of volume alone.

Even in your own industry, you’ve likely found that there’s an increasingly saturated social media network that you have to wade through.

With Facebook focusing more on engagement, simply trying to route traffic to your website can be a mistake.

That means that Facebook is also evaluating intent when it filters content.

This particular trend isn’t exactly in your favor.

And when you tack on that Facebook users are savvy enough to filter out the content that they don’t want to see even if it makes it past the News Feed algorithms, you have a recipe for disaster.

That’s why understanding where social media fits into the sales funnel and focusing on brand awareness will serve you better for Organic Reach.

Social media is a top-of-the-funnel endeavor, and you have to treat it that way.

Going for a hard sell just isn’t going to work, and that type of content is just going to get filtered out by either Facebook or your audience.

There’s a greater need now more than ever to engage directly with your community.

That means instead of just posting random articles, you need to find ways to have discussions on your Page.

You need to spend more time being active and replying to comments on posts, even unhelpful ones.

Because your audience craves acknowledgement more than anything.

They just want to be heard.

Real-time engagement can help the Organic Reach of your brand more than a sales-oriented post ever could.

That’s why you need to ditch the old sales funnel approach to social media and adopt a more accurate idea of what social funnels look like.

Notice how the elements in the top part of this funnel are more relationship oriented.

That’s because your Organic Reach relies on audience building with Facebook, not sales.

And I can’t over-emphasize how important this shift is.

Because business are almost always affected by changes to social networks, which is why the idea is to share content users are interested in and will actually engage with.

You need to worry about sales a little later, preferably once your audience is established and loyal to your brand.

Which oddly enough means you need to be smarter about your Facebook Ads budget.

Because that’s one of the best ways to invest in building your audience with a longer funnel.

You need to embrace Facebook as a pay-to-play game, because it is for better or worse.

More and more marketers are coming to Facebook, and it’s already the top source of paid social media in the world by a long shot.

Which means the only way you can play, or win, is to start investing your money in it wisely.

Try boosting posts that have already proven to be strong performers, not just the posts you think will perform well.

That means you need to post content first, then check your engagement.

Then if your audience engagement is strong, boost that post so that it reaches even more people.

In sum, create and boost great content, not just any content.

Because if recent trends have shown us anything, it’s that we’re only going to see an increase in spending on paid digital advertising in the coming years.

So learning to couple the pay-to-play element with the other tactics in this post is the best way to move forward.

Since you can’t just rest on your laurels and coast off of Organic Reach anymore, you have to take action.

Tip #6: Consider an alternative route

The final piece of advice that I want to leave you with revolves around a rather unsung element of Facebook: Groups.

From a marketing point of view, Facebook Groups have been relatively incognito due to how a sort of risk-reward equation that always tipped more toward risk.

It was just easier to post on your Page, pay for your ads, and ignore Groups.

But now, they’re looking more attractive.

And this makes sense. A Group around your brand is one that consumers will have to opt into.

Which means they get notifications and engage with your brand at a deeper level.

Plus, they’re free, which can’t be beat.

And Facebook has been giving quite a bit of attention to Groups lately:

With more than one billion Facebook users involved in Groups, we may well be looking at a new frontier for social media marketers.

It may take time to lay the groundwork and build your community, but there’s no denying the potential power of your own Group.

They could be the ultimate answer to the Organic Search issue.

Conclusion

The truth of the matter is that Facebook Organic Reach is not dead.

It’s just different than what you’re used to.

Facebook has changed the game, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still play it well.

You just have to realize that your metrics only look different. In reality, your Organic Reach is more accurate than ever, which is a good thing.

But these changes require that you take a new approach to maintaining and improving your social engagement.

A simple change like focusing on quality over quantity is by far the best places to start.

But more than that, try to find the format that fits your audience. Use blog posts, images, and especially video to engage to the fullest.

Then take strides to post your best content at the right time on the right day of the week.

You can also start to curate content that your audience will be interested in, which tells Facebook that your content is shareworthy.

Overall, just focus on brand building, not sales.

And remember that Facebook is now a pay-to-play system for marketers. If you want to win, bring your checkbook.

Finally, start considering Groups as an alternative for opt-in engagement. You could be suprised by what you find.

At the end of the day, your Organic Reach rises and falls on how well you execute the strategies in this post.

All you have to do now is find a way to stick with these changes.

What methods have worked best for keeping Organic Reach up for your brand?

About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.

Is Facebook Organic Reach Really Dead? Here’s How to Break Through It for More Social Engagement